
Book 






THE PLAYWORK BOOK 



THE 

PLAYWORK BOOK 

BY 

ANN MACBETH 



WITH 114 DIAGRAMS 




NEW YORK 

Robert M. McBride fcf Company 

1918 






Printed in the United States of America 



Published October, 1918 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Introduction 


• • 




• 




I 


A Woolen Ball 




, 




. 25 


Another Woolen Ball 








. 27 


A Sprig of Flowers . 








. 30 


A Skipping Rope 








• 33 


A Sucker . 








. 37 


Golliwogs . 








. 38 


The Meal Sack 








40 


An Emery Cushion . 








42 


Rat-Tail Knitting 








44 


A Peep-Show Picture 








46 


Cup and Ball 








48 


Storks 


• • « 








50 


A Cork Doll 


• • 








52 


A Rabbit . 


• • 








52 


A Cork Horse 


, 








54 


An Engine an© Tender 








55 


A Chest of Drawers . 








56 


A Cradle . . . . 








57 


A Doll's Table 








58 


A Doll's Bed 








58 


A Doll's Chair 








59 


Another Doll's Chair 








60 




vii 











Vlll 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Necklaces . 


• • 








. 6i 


A Hat Band 








. 64 


A Fan 








. 65 


A Pin-Wheel or Whirltgk 


J i 






. 65 


A Tin Wheel or Buzzer 


• 






. 67 


A Wooden Mill 








. 68 


A Feather Wheel 








. 70 


An Air Propeller 








. 72 


A Reversing Propeller 








. 73 


A Waterwheel and Shute 








. 74 


A Pop-Gun 








. 76 


A Whistle 










78 


A Long Whistli 


z . 








. 79 


A Squeaker 










. 80 


A Buzzer . 










80 


A Clapper 










81 


A Telephone 










. 82 


A Drum 










83 


A Megaphone . 










84 


Rush Furniture 










. 85 


Rush Whip 










86 


Rush Rattle 










s? 


Paper Beads 










, 88 


Fish Bone Tea-Set 








89 


A Rush or Raffia Bag 








90 


The Harvest Plait . 








91 


Doll's Furniture 








92 


A Wheelbarrow 








. 94 


A Fern Basket 


f ♦ 








• 95 



CONTENTS 



IX 













PAGE 


A Doll's Stool ...... 96 


A Doll's Stool of Feathers 






. 97 


A Porter's Hand Barrow . 






. 98 


A Crane . 








. 99 


A Top 










. lOI 


A Teetotum 










. 102 


Bow and Arrow 










. 103 


A Dart 










. 105 


A Crossbow 










. 106 


A Catapult 










. 108 


A Target . 










. 109 


A Raft 


, 








. 110 


A Canoe . 










. Ill 


A Ship 










. 114 


A Propeller 










. 118 


A Doll 










.* 119 


A Brownie 










. 122 


Kites 










. 124 


A Monkey on a Stick 










. 131 


A Dancing Lady 










134 


A Model Aeroplane . 










136 


A Farmyard 










138 


A Doll's House 






> 


1 


140 



THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

FAR enough below the surface, in 
every one of us there Uves, very 
often almost forgotten, the child, 
who, like Peter Pan, ''never grows up." It 
is this everlasting child in us that keeps 
the keys which open for each his Kingdom 
of Heaven, and sad it is for those of us 
who have lost sight of the keeper of the 
keys. The sweetest and loveliest things in 
our lives are the simplest things. They 
do not abide in the excitable enjoyment of 
luxuries and entertainments to be bought 
with money; they lie in the living and eter- 
nal interest of the homeliest things of 
daily life, wherever people are simple, and 
sincere of heart, and full of loving, kindly 
thought and care for the concerns of 
others; where people do things them- 
selves instead of paying for them to be 



2 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

done; where wealth is counted in love, in 
thoughtfulness, and in interest in other 
people, and not in many possessions. These 
things are the heritage of all children, and 
we are happy if we can carry our heritage 
with us through our life ; for this indeed is 
to be of the Kingdom of Heaven. 

A child who is unspoiled by the false and 
ignorant estimates of others with regard 
to the rank and standing of those among 
whom he lives, is perhaps our truest social- 
ist. He comes into the world possessing 
nothing, so far as he is aware, save his own 
identity; he knows no distinction of class; 
his ideas of rank are based solely on the 
beauty, charm, and kindness which are in 
due proportion the characters of those he 
lives with. He makes his own little king- 
dom if he is encouraged to work it out, or 
play it out, for himself; and happy is the 
child and happy is the parent of that child 
who learns to play independently, and to 
gather together his kingdom, without a 
continual cry for assistance from others. 
Here is one of the first great landmarks in 
education, and a child who is unspoiled by 



THE PLAYWORK BOOK 3 

too many possessions in the way of toys 
will be one well provided, for his mind 
should at once move to create these pos- 
sessions for himself. This power to create, 
this moving of the spirit to make some- 
thing out of chaos, is in all healthy human 
beings, and it is the happiest faculty we 
have. It is, in fact, one of the most vital 
sides of religion in us, and perhaps the 
most important to us. It brings us into 
direct kinship with the Great Creator of 
all things. This moving of the Holy Spirit 
over the chaos of the world, in our busi- 
nesses, in our workshops, in our shipyards, 
in our buildings, in all craftsman's work 
in our factories, is probably never realized 
by the churchmen among us, and only 
vaguely apprehended by the educational 
authorities. Yet does not this very power 
of creative thought amongst even the 
humblest of us constitute religion of the 
most living vitality? This Holy Spirit 
moving, and living, and creating anew in 
every trade and craft, and in every place 
where men are busy, should be better real- 
ized by us, and more respected; we should 



4 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

then be better men and women. The in- 
ventive minds among us are indeed our 
prophets, answering to the call of those 
whose labor is too long and heavy, and pro- 
ducing what will lessen the burden. An- 
swering again the call for more light, more 
beauty, more music in the world, and pro- 
ducing our arts and our playgrounds, our 
games, our schools and colleges. Answer- 
ing again the call for freedom from pain, 
and we have our hospitals, and our great 
doctors, and all who work for the better- 
ment of the world. Here is the real and 
living church of God on earth. They say 
we are leaving the churches behind us. Say 
rathei: that the church is more with us, and 
all are its ministers who are working for 
the world's welfare. 

We rebuke far too often that habit of 
children of asking questions. We say, ''Be 
quiet," and "You will see some other day" ! 
Yet it is by questions that the child shows 
most his interest in life, and his inclina- 
tions and desires and tendencies. 

We instruct a child for years in the 
writings, doings, sayings, and contrivings 



THE PLAYWORK BOOK 5 

of others who have gone before us. How 
rarely do we realize that in these little ones 
there may be as great, or greater, light 
within, only needing care and encourage- 
ment to develop and flame up, and show its 
creative strength? It is sad to think how 
often, these little lights are snuffed out in 
their first flickerings by the thoughtless 
things we say, by the foolish way we tease 
them at the slightest sign of independent 
thought, by our ignorant habit of com- 
mending and praising those who give up 
their independence, and conform to the 
commonplace habits and customs we have 
adopted as convenient. 

Many very young children show aston- 
ishingly developed faculties in certain di- 
rections even before they can express 
themselves in speech. I know a little boy 
who, in his second year, showed such an in- 
terest in machinery that his elder relatives 
had to learn the parts of a locomotive en- 
gine in order not to betray their own ig- 
norance; and over and over again we see 
the faculties of the creative mind so strong 
in young children that it is difficult to per- 



6 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

suade ourselves that they have not some 
previous experience to draw upon. Es- 
pecially is this the case in music and the 
arts, for here there is perhaps less depen- 
dence on tools and previous technical train- 
ing required, than in other constructive 
v^ork. But it is sad to see, and very com- 
mon also, that these bright beginnings too 
often flicker out, not because the spirit is 
lacking, but because these children are 
only too often driven to hide their lights, 
because they feel conspicuous, are teased, 
and rebuked, and chidden for their non- 
conformity, and are made to feel them- 
selves outcasts if they pursue the way their 
spirit tends to lead them; and they lose 
their light, these finer little spirits, and sub- 
side into the twilight of mediocre minds. 

It is indeed difficult, in these times of 
over-crowded schools and over-worked 
teachers, to foster and develop the person- 
alities of these little ones, but we all look 
to a time when education may be a stronger 
force among us, more respected and more 
desired, when those who teach in our ele- 
mentary schools may be the finest men and 



THE PLAYWORK BOOK 7 

women we have, those of the greatest 
hearts, and the widest understanding (for 
into their hands we place the most precious 
thing we have) ; a time, when, reaHzing 
that the laborer is worthy of his hire, we 
must also be brought to realize that the 
hire must be worthy of the laborer. 

We become more and more socialistic in 
our community life in these days, and a 
child is now so little left to the charge of 
his mother that his life, almost from baby- 
hood upwards, is just a passing on from 
one trained hand to another till he is able 
to support himself independently, and of- 
ten long after that. His years of school 
grow longer and busier, and now even his 
playtime is to be more closely guarded and 
supervised. Yet it is to be hoped that here 
the guarding and supervising will be spe- 
cially directed to preserving his indepen- 
dence and his choice of leisure occupation. 

Games are good for all, yet playtime 
should emphatically not be all games : this 
is where our public schools have failed us ; 
they have given too much importance to 
games, and almost none to private enter- 



8 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

prise in constructive play. In the little 
contrivances of children lie the germs of 
vast mechanical and artistic enterprises. 
The marvelous crafts passed on to us from 
ancient days in every land were never the 
result of training in schools, they partook 
more of the qualities of v^hat I v^ould call 
''constructive play," passed on from parent 
to child, each nev^ thing a little different 
from any other, changing and varying in 
every age, yet all through a pleasure and a 
joy to their makers. Our trades and our 
crafts have all their beginnings in the im- 
mature constructions v^e make as children. 
We build houses, v^e furnish them, v^e 
make instruments of music (and un- 
music), v^^e make ships, we fashion vessels 
of clay, and wood, and metal; we weave 
and we paint; we dimly foresaw the days 
when men should fly like birds, and we 
made kites. All this went on for countless 
generations, and then we laid captive the 
steam and the electric current, and lo! a 
change; all things are possible. Yet we 
have had a set back; we have forgotten 
awhile that the spirit in all of us is greater 



THE PLAYWORK BOOK 9 

than the machine. We have allowed our 
machines to make our toys, and instead of 
being toy-makers our children have to 
some extent become toy breakers, not be- 
cause they are really trying to destroy, but 
because they have the right and natural 
desire to see hov^ a thing is made. It is not 
enough, how^ever, to know this; it is very- 
essential that a child should make for him- 
self, and the probability is that if the thing 
is easily bought he will not take the trouble 
to make it. He will be inclined to take it 
for granted that just because it is a "com- 
mercial" article, a thing to be bought in a 
shop, he cannot make it. Toys imported 
from abroad have been so plentiful and so 
cheap of late years that the children of to- 
day rarely attempt to make them for them- 
selves, and they are immensely the poorer, 
intellectually speaking, for the lack of this 
necessity to make them. It is for this rea- 
son that I have gathered together a small 
collection of the contrivances of past gene- 
rations, and the present generation too, not 
in order that they serve as mere subjects 
for copy, but because in making such 



10 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

things children develop ideas for improv- 
ing upon them, and for making new things. 

This little collection of v^^orks and enter- 
prises is brought together as a suggestion 
for w^hat Scottish folk so aptly call ''ploys/' 
w^hich the children may undertake without 
much help or instruction. Later on it may 
be possible to collect a more mature series 
of suggestions for recreative work in eve- 
ning schools and continuation classes. 
There are people everywhere whose work 
during the day is so taxing that they can- 
not continue to strain mind and hand at the 
usual subjects given in evening schools, 
and yet they can learn to employ their leis- 
ure time very profitably by work which 
does not demand either mental strain, nor 
highly developed skill, nor any elaborate 
outfit, nor noisy methods of construction. 
It must be truly "leisure" work, and be 
planned to give refreshment and stimula- 
tion and "play" to weary brain and body. 

Such gentle fireside crafts as the decora- 
tion of pottery, and coarse and effective 
needlework are delightful to practice of an 
evening, and need give no trouble to the 



THE PLAYWORK BOOK 11 

tidy and anxious Marthas of the household. 
No evenings are more pleasant than those 
I have spent with friends all busy at quiet 
crafts round the hearth, chatting a little, 
or listening to a reader, or singing simple 
songs in parts, and v^ath no accompaniment 
of instruments. Constructive design for 
either of these two crafts is a delightful 
thing for either men or women of any age. 
We are never too old to learn to design pat- 
terns so long as our hands are able to guide 
a pen. For what is writing but pattern. 
Each of us writes his or her name to an in- 
dividual design, easily recognized so soon 
as our hand has learned to control our in- 
strument. Patterns for these simple crafts 
should therefore emanate from the minds 
of the workers themselves, and should 
never be copied if it is possible to avoid it. 
This spirit of creativeness and invention 
should find a special period for its develop- 
ment in the day's time-table, and it would 
be immensely helpful and interesting if 
teachers would make collections of "out- 
standing" productions from the children, 
and if little loan collections of these might 



12 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

travel round from place to place. The 
children themselves are alv^ays intensely 
interested in seeing such things — and 
sometimes the older folk v^ho have not for- 
gotten to be children are even more so. 
I have always urged that craft-work from 
our various educational centers should go 
"on tour" in this way, and I keep a large 
quantity of needlework which shows indi- 
viduality, from all sorts of schools, going 
round the country. This usually is shown 
to teachers only, which limits its sphere, 
for the children themselves show a most 
enthusiastic interest in it, and whenever I 
have shown such work to children in ele- 
mentary schools, the chorus of excited 
little voices usually repeats, ''Oh, I could 
do that," which is exactly what is needed 
for a good beginning. How charming it 
would be if municipalities would have in 
every museum a section of "modern craft 
work," independent of the collections of 
antiquities we store up. For we also have 
beautiful things being created amongst us, 
no less beautiful because they result from 
the demands of modern needs and usages. 



THE PLAY WORK BOOK 13 

New habits of life produce new demands, 
and children quickly catch new ideas and 
adapt themselves to the use of hitherto un- 
known materials. This is especially the 
case in cities, and the suggested construc- 
tions for the playwork subjects in this book 
are almost all made out of the waste ma- 
terials the children may readily find at 
hand, and they are put together as far as 
possible, without any particular need for 
skill, and with the fewest and simplest of 
tools. In the country there is always an 
immense wealth of superfluous material to 
play with, and the country child has a far 
greater treasury from which to supply the 
need of hand and mind than his neighbor 
of the city. Imagination can find an im- 
mensity of outlet and opportunity, even in 
the neighborhood of cities. I remember 
well my village of cave dwellings which I 
carefully hollowed out beneath the spread- 
ing roots of trees — very dirty trees — in a 
suburban wood in a Lancashire town. The 
caves were furnished with stones and 
twigs, and populated with earwigs or any 
creeping thing to be found and housed 



14 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

there. Later I owned an island in a West- 
morland Lake, and had a beautiful house 
of woven branches of the growing rowan 
trees, with a garden planted with ferns and 
wild flowers among mossy bordered paths. 
And again, my sisters and brothers and I 
made fine wigwams of the branches of 
young oak and hazel trees found in those 
lakeland woods; they were tied together 
at the top with the fibrous stems of honey- 
suckle, spread tentwise at the base, and 
heaped outside with a covering of dead 
bracken and dry leafy twigs. In town too, 
for wet days there was always the house 
under the table, walled in with table cover 
and blankets : delightful dwellings all, and 
happy little "homes" to live in, for any 
place is a "home" to us when we look back 
to it with happy memory. And the gar- 
lands we made of daisies and red clover, 
thick as a man's arm and plaited strongly 
together, with which we decked the 
clothes-props on the drying green, and 
made them into Maypoles ! We remember 
the joy these things gave, chiefly because 
we made them ; we remember them far bet- 



THE PLAYWORK BOOK 15 

ter than the games we played, or the en- 
tertainments we went to. 

At school again, my best personal experi- 
ence, and one that I have found valuable 
above all the other education I got, was not 
the lessons I learned from books ; I have 
forgotten almost all I got from them. It 
was the great days when we had plays in 
school, and I was allowed to devise, and 
practically direct the whole making of the 
stage properties. A great time that. We 
made armor, and weaporrs, and crowns, and 
garments, and wings, and scenery. We had 
no assistance from teachers for this, and I 
know it taught me more than any of my 
teachers did. During school days I did not 
learn to draw because I had a drawing les- 
son once a week, and painfully and care- 
fully drew perspectives of chairs and 
schoolrooms and other dull things. I 
learned to draw because I loved to scribble 
in my lesson books princes and princesses, 
and fairies, and because I had few play- 
things, and was always making and deco- 
rating little gifts for other people. 

This practise of decorating the things 



16 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

we make is really far the best way to teach 
drawing to either children or others. We 
make our education in drawing a far too 
limited affair by directing it to a pictorial 
issue alone, and drawing is a far wider sub- 
ject than concerns picture-making solely. 
If we go into our museums, we see from 
the ancient handicrafts left to us by primi- 
tive peoples, that in the beginning all art 
was purely applied to useful things. The 
clay jar modelled in the hands alone, with 
its lines and curve*5 just emphasized with a 
few scratches or impressions made with a 
stick or a bone, what is this but just play? 
and yet it is art also and the art adds im- 
mensely to the value of that jar. So also 
to-day, if any child takes a piece of clay 
and makes a vessel by hand, the very same 
thing is produced. I have seen little pots 
made in schools which it is difficult to dis- 
tinguish from some of those of ancient 
Egypt or Peru in our museums. They are 
not one whit less artistic, and yet the art 
is quite unconscious, the child was only 
''playing" with the clay. 
We would be much the richer, commer- 



THE PLAYWORK BOOK 17 

dally speaking, if schools would only take 
up this different side of art teaching- 
making patterns, instead of pictures. I am 
not condemning the drawing of pictures, 
but I am urging that pattern-making — 
constructive design in actual material, not 
on paper — should come first. Pattern is 
the mathematics of art, and it can develop 
the mathematical faculties far more wide- 
ly than mere mental calculations can. It 
must be learned by wise gradations, and 
the learner must never be allowed to get 
out of hand or run riot with over-elabora- 
tion. If we can teach the children in their 
drawing lessons to decorate the useful ar- 
ticles they need for the home, we shall give 
a great impetus to the commercial arts. 
For example, if a child has one lesson at 
decorating a piece of pottery with a brush 
dipped in glaze paint and decorates it with 
nothing but a line of dots or strokes, he can 
have this fired and fixed and use it, and 
he also at once looks at every china shop 
with a sharply discriminating eye. In a 
very short time he will be able to choose 
between good decoration and bad, he will 



18 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

understand economy in production, he wiU 
very soon demand from the trade a higher 
class of design, and he will be willing to 
pay for better design because he under- 
stands the working of it. 

The fashion for amateurs to practice 
photography did not do harm to the profes- 
sional photographer, as was feared at first ; 
it raised the standard of professional work, 
and brought more custom, and not less, to 
the professional worker. x\nd this holds 
good in all work, the more widely and 
thoroughly it is ''understanded of the 
people," the more desirable do the people 
find it. 

There is a great education before art 
teachers, and they must realize that they 
must come into touch with science and 
mathematics and general constructive 
work. They must watch the changing 
needs and fashions of the day, and realize 
that not only in classic times was the art 
of the people a beautiful and desirable 
thing. They must realize, too, that in this 
Twentieth Century our hands are extend- 
ing their powers, and that by the use of 



THE PLAYWORK BOOK 19 

machines we are reaching a far larger pub- 
lic than unaided hands could do. The ar- 
tist has spent two or three generations be- 
wailing the machine ; he forgot that no ma- 
chine can, of its own powers, be artistic or 
inartistic. He left the machine alone, and 
therefore the machine-work has fallen into 
discredit. The artist craftsman is too 
often too conscious of his art, and does not 
subordinate himself sufficiently to modern 
ways and conditions. It is not the fault of 
the machine that much of our manufac- 
tured output is inartistic, it is the fault of 
the artist that he has not managed to con- 
trol the machine. First and foremost, 
however, we must have some change in the 
training of artists, and must direct their 
attention to utility, rather than pictorial 
work. It is difficult to count the outlets 
possible to the decorative craftsman, pro- 
vided he understands modern machinery 
and commercial demands. This training in 
handicraft begins, very rightly and natu- 
rally in the kindergarten schools, but there, 
unfortunately, it stops short. Now what 
we want to do is to plan out for our grow- 



20 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

ing children such crafts as will develop in- 
telligence and skill of hand, without de- 
manding too great physical strength or 
technical training, and without undue ex- 
penditure of money upon materials and 
outfit. 

For the younger children the easiest 
media to work in are clay and needlework. 
The clay-work should be directed to the 
most permanent and useful things that can 
be produced; pottery and tiles can be very 
easily made, and are very permanent if 
they are glazed and fired and decorated, 
and this can be done at very little expense. 
Needlework must be taught so that the 
worker develops intelligence and indepen- 
dence, and is no longer made to sew the 
multitudes of fine stitches which were once 
considered necessar}^, and which made the 
girls mere unthinking machines. There 
are endless new ways to be followed out in 
the sewing and embroidery and construc- 
tion of garments and household textiles. 
Even the rather mechanical knitting is 
probably only in its infancy as yet, and we 
may see it do great things, and play a more 



THE PLAYWORK BOOK 21 

beautiful part in our textile arts. To re- 
form and renew the vitality of all these 
things we must realize that they have all 
their beginnings in the playwork of the 
little child, and that simply because the 
little child has no traditions to unlearn, and 
is therefore independent enough to think 
out new devices in his play, so must we all 
keep before us the fact that we have that 
light within us which is above, and inde- 
pendent of, traditions. 

If we can see any way in which any work 
can be improved or altered, or beautified 
by some change in its treatment, we must 
be bold to try it, for only by courage and 
bravery of thought does the work of the 
world keep itself fresh and ever renewed 
and. changing towards better things. 
Never be afraid that because you have not 
tried to do a thing you will be unable to do 
it. If the thought of doing it has come to 
you, it is a sign that some power is there, 
at any rate, and the impulse to improve 
and change a thing for the better is just 
that creative impulse stirring within, 
which I have pleaded for. Whose is that 



22 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

impulse? Not our own entirely. Then 
surely if it is good, we do right at least to 
try to carry it out. It is the Mind that 
changes matter, but it is not your mind nor 
mine, though it is in our charge. And 
happy is he who has faith to listen and give 
it force and visible expression. 

There are in this little book things that 
many of the wiser folk shake their heads 
over — catapults for instance. Yet I have 
put them in; for surely if we older folk 
had not enjoyed our catapults we should 
probably have been sadder folk, as well 
as wiser. All children may some day or 
other handle instruments of offense and 
destruction, and it is part of their legiti- 
mate education to learn to do no harm with 
them, so I have put in the catapult. I en- 
joyed playing with mine, and I do not think 
I ever broke anything with it, I do not even 
remember hitting anything I aimed at, and 
probably this is the average experience. I 
have not attempted to enter into any 
lengthy suggestions as regards making 
boats, or other toys requiring much pa- 
tience and skill and knowledge of tools. 



THE PLAYWORK BOOK 23 

Boat-making is a most interesting thing 
for both boys and girls, and can be carried 
to great perfection by them, if they have 
perseverance. I see no reason w^hy the 
making of model boats and mechanical 
toys should not be the special v^ork of 
boys' manual classes, nor is there any rea- 
son why a great quantity of the craft-w^ork 
and needle-v^ork in day and evening schools 
should not be commercialized, and disposed 
of by the educational authorities, both to 
the advantage of the teachers and the pu- 
pils. One field alone — that of providing 
souvenirs for sale to tourists — is a large 
one, and is at present open to the schools. 
Tourists do not come here with any desire 
to buy souvenirs made abroad; they would 
greatly prefer things with a local flavor, 
and preferably small and portable. I know 
from personal experience how immensely 
such a market encourages students to work 
at their classes in the evenings. We could 
keep the evening schools packed with stu- 
dents if they realized that their work, done 
in leisure hours, had some prospect of 
bringing in a return instead of involving 



24 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

outlay alone. This also is play work; and 
though this small book deals only with 
such playwork in its infancy, yet it must 
be emphatically urged that it develops into 
great things, things that the nation needs, 
and which can only come to their full de- 
velopment because the nation's children 
have learned to play. 

My thanks are due to my grandfather, 
grandmother, and my father and mother, 
and to my nurses whose names I have for- 
gotten, but from whom I learned to make 
many things. Also to Mrs. Grisedale, Mrs. 
Wear, Mrs. Fry, Mrs. Fellows, Miss All- 
right, Miss Worsdell, Miss Douglas, Miss 
Arthur, Mr. J. T. Ewen, H.M.I., Mr. For- 
rester Wilson, and to Norman Guild, for 
many suggestions, and for their very prac- 
tical help. 



A WOOLLEN BALL 

Materials Required: — 

A small strip of thick cardboard, a small piece of 
string, nv^ool^ scissors. 

This is the easiest of all the things one 
can make in wool. Take a narrow piece of 
stiff cardboard, or a flat stick about five 
inches long and about one inch wide, and 
make a slit at each end: between these two 
slits stretch a piece of thin string and then, 
about the middle of the strip of cardboard, 
wind the wool over and over till it is like a 
ball. Do not allow the wool to spread too 
far along the cardboard. When the ball of 
wool is two, or two and a half inches in 
diameter, loosen the string from the slits, 
and slip out the cardboard carefully from 
the ball; you will not have a bundle of 
wool with a string running through all the 
loops. Tie the string up tightly and knot 

25 



26 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

it well, then take your scissors and cut the 
loops as in Figure 2. After all the loops 
are cut you will have to clip all the loose 
ends, till they are about even in length, and 
the bundle will now be a nice regular shape. 




Figs. 1 and 2. 



This is a somewhat wasteful way of mak- 
ing a ball, and should only be used by very 
little children with waste wool or cotton 
3^arn. It teaches them, however, a very 
useful thing — to wind wool evenly, and to 
cut and trim it. 



ANOTHER WOOLLEN BALL 27 

ANOTHER WOOLLEN BALL 

Materials Required: — 

Two used post-cards or pieces of thin cardboard, 
a strong darning needle, odd pieces of bright-colored 
wools, scissors. 

A very much better way to make a wool- 
len ball, but more difficult, is shown in Fig- 
ures 3 and 4. Here you must first have a 
piece of fairly stiff cardboard and on it lay 




Figs. 3 and 4. 

a teacup or tumbler with the rim on the 
cardboard. Draw with a pencil, or scratch 
with the scissors round the rim so that 
you have a circle about three and a half or 
four inches across on it, and cut these cir- 
cles out. Then take some smaller circular 



28 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

thing, a quarter, or something about that 
size, and place it carefully in the center of 
each of your larger circles, and cut out the 
smaller circle like a hole in the middle of 
the bigger one. Now take some wool — you 
can have it of many bright colors, and if 
you have any old woollen knitted things 
which you do not need you can unravel 
them. Slip one end of your wool through 
the hole of both pieces of cardboard when 
they are laid together, tie it in a knot, and 
with your fingers at first, and later with a 
darning needle, keep winding the wool 
through the hole and over and over the 
cardboard until it is all covered. Go on 
winding it through the hole, until the hole 
is so full that even your needle will not 
push through. Then you must take sharp 
scissors and carefully cut the wool at the 
outer edge of this round cushion you have 
wound, till the scissors cut into the card- 
board, so that you can slip one point be- 
tween the two cards and cut right round 
the circle. You must be careful not to let 
the wool be pulled out of the hole through 
which you have threaded it. Now take 



ANOTHER WOOLLEN BALL 29 

a piece of thin strong string, slip it round 
between the two cardboard circles, wind it 
two or three times, and tie it very tightly. 
Next, carefully tear away your two card- 
board rounds and you will have a fine firm 
ball, which only needs cutting and trim- 
ming with the scissors into an even shape. 
You can make this ball look very pretty by 
arranging your wool as you wind it into 
different layers of varying color or make a 
quarter of your circle of one color and the 
next quarter of another, and so on. Small 
balls made like this make pretty pompoms 
for shoes and hats, and tassels on bags, or 
they can be fixed on drawstrings in under- 
clothing, to prevent them coming out. 



30 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

A SPRIG OF FLOWERS 

Materials Required: — 

A little thin cardboard, wools of various bright 
colors, milliner's wire, a small darning needle, 
scissors. 

This can be made very much as the sec- 
ond woollen ball is made. You take a circle 
of cardboard again, but rather a smaller 
one about two inches across (a small ink 
bottle or an egg-cup would give about the 
right size) ; and cut in it a round hole about 
as big as a dime. Wind bright-colored 
wool through the hole and over the card- 
board very evenly, using a darning needle 
because it is such a small hole. Wind on 
wool until all the cardboard is covered 
evenly. Then take a piece of wire about 
six inches long, or a hairpin will do if 
straightened out. You can do this by hold- 
ing the ends tightly in each hand and rub- 
bing the pin backwards and forwards 
against the edge of a table. At one end of 
the wire bend it, so that it makes a little 
loop, the smaller the better. Now begin 
with green wool to wrap round the wire, 
covering in the loop first, and when you 



A SPRIG OF FLOWERS 



31 



have covered in the v^hole loop v^ind the 
wool over the end of the bent piece again, 
and bind it tightly to the other portion, and 
go on dov^n the v^ire for some distance. 
With another hairpin (not straightened 
out this time, but bent as much to a point 
as possible) or another piece of v^ire bent 




Figs. 5 to 9. 

like a V, tie the green wool at the bend, 
and wind in and out from one side of the 
wire to the other, first letting the sides go 
wide from each other and then gradually 
tightening them together, till you have 



32 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

them closed again and they become a leaf 
shape. Bind this leaf into the first wire 
stem, and add more leaves if you wish. 
Now wind over the first two fingers of 
your left hand some yellow or dark-col- 
ored wool about a dozen times, and take 
the end of the wool and tie it through when 
you withdraw your fingers, as in making 
the first woollen ball. Hold these loops 
tight from this knotted part, and wind the 
end of the wool round till it is like Figure 
6, a little tassel; take your darning needle 
and sew this tassel into the hole in the 
circle of cardboard so that it makes a cen- 
ter for your flower, and sew the cardboard 
flower to the loop at the end of the wire. 
You can make two or three small tassels 
for this center if you like, and bind them 
first around the loop so that they fill up the 
hole in the cardboard quite tightly. More 
tassels can be made and tied to wires and 
bound into the main wire stem like little 
buds. These sprigs look very pretty when 
worn in hats, and they will not spoil with 
the rain: you can also put a large spray in 
a vase when you cannot get real flowers. 



A SKIPPING ROPE 33 



A SKIPPING ROPE 

Materials Required: — 

Some cheap thin string or cotton w^aste, some small 
twigs, a pencil or pen-holder, a strong hook fixed 
in a wall. 

Take three or four lengths of thin string 
— a very cheap quality will do — about three 
yards long, and tie them into a knot close to 
each end. Be sure that every separate 
piece is of the same length. Then take one 
knotted end and slip the knot round a hook 
in the v^^all, not too high up ; a curtain hook 
will do very well, or any other knob or pro- 
jecting thing which will allow a very small 
loop to slip off and on, and which will hold 
firmly. Into the other end, at the knot, 
slip a pencil or pen-holder, and hold the 
strand of strings or threads with the left 
thumb and forefinger loosely, just beyond 
the place the pencil is slipped into it, as in 
Figure 10. With the right hand first finger 
hit the pencil round and round away from 
you, downwards, keeping it whirling so 
that the long strand becomes twisted. Do 
not hold too tight with the left hand, but 
be sure to keep the strands taut from the 



34 



THE PLAYWORK BOOK 



hook where they are fastened. Keep on 
whirling until the strand is twisted so 
tightly that it begins to go into kinks. Then 
get somebody to catch the strand about 
the middle, and keeping it carefully taut 
all the time walk round until you bring the 
pencil end up to the hook, and slip the 




*S52SS5SS2S3SSSXS:^;^ 



ZZZ^Z22Z} 



Figs. 10 to 12. 
strand from the pencil on to the hook. 
Then take the pencil to where the strand 
is being held in the middle and slip it into 
the doubled end, and holding it as tightly 
as possible from the hook, as before, whirl 
the pencil in the opposite direction, to- 
wards you, upwards, as in Figure 11. This 
will make a beautiful cord. The pencil 



A SKIPPING ROPE 35 

can be slipped out now, and the ends on the 
hook must be knotted together so that the 
cord will not unravel. This is called a 
"twofold cord/' and it can be made in two 
colors if you divide the length before the 
first twisting into two equal lengths of dif- 
ferently colored threads. A "threefold 
cord" can be made in the same way, but it 
must be folded into three different lengths 
before the second twisting, and three dif- 
ferent colors may be introduced. A three- 
fold cord is much fuller and firmer than a 
twofold one. Cords can be made of wool 
or silk or any kind of thread, and must be 
made of few or many strands according to 
the thickness required, and according to 
the thickness of the strands used. Thin 
woollen cords are very nice to run into 
woolen garments as drawstrings, or into 
bags; thick ones made of knitting yarn are 
splendid for dressing-gowns, and the ends 
can be finished off with tassels. 

If you make a skipping rope in this way 
you. will want a firm handle at each end, 
and you can make it by getting three or 
four small sticks or twigs, and laying them 



36 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

close to each end round your cord. Then 
bind these round, at both ends of your skip- 
ping rope, with firm twine. Next take the 
end of the rope which projects beyond the 
twigs, and double the strands back along 
the twigs for a short distance, and bind 
them down again and cut away any super- 
fluous length, and knot your binding string 
firmly. This will make a very pretty little 
handle, especially if you can get pretty 
greenish twigs with the bark on them and 
tie with colored threads or twine. Fig- 
ure 12. 



A SUCKER 



37 



A SUCKER 

Materials Required: — 

A small piece of thick leather, strong string, scissors ^ 
or penknife. 

This is a very interesting toy to play 

with. It is very simple to make: all it 

needs is a round piece o± 

fairly thick leather about 

four inches across. Cut this 

into a perfect circle with a 

knife, if the leather is too 

thick to cut with scissors, 

and in the very middle bore 

a small hole and put through 

this a piece of strong string, 

about a yard long, and tie a 

knot in this so that it will 

not slip through the hole. 

Now soak your leather in 

water till it is very soft and 
Fig. 13. 

damp, and keep it in this condition when- 
ever you use it. By dropping the round of 
damp leather quickly on to the surface of 
a smooth stone you will be able to lift and 
carry quite large stones. You must be sure 




38 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

to drop the sucker on to the smooth sur- 
faces, because if there are any Httle crev- 
ices under the sucker the air in them will 
prevent suction. 

GOLLIWOGS 

Materials Required: — 

Colored wools, a little string, cotton, or silk, and 
a tiny piece of tape; a large-eyed needle, scissors. 

These golliwogs are made of tassels of 
wool. First wind your tassel over your 
fingers much as you wound it for the first 
woollen ball on the cardboard. Then cut 
the loops, and tie very tightly with several 
turns of strong cotton or silk close to the 
end, and again about half an inch lower. 
This forms the head, and the ends at the 
top can be trimmed into a top knot. Be- 
low the head, divide off a small portion on 
each side for the arms, and tie each of 
these again about half way down, and cut 
off just below the tied portion, where the 
dotted line is in Figure 14. Tie also for the 
waist at the double dotted line, and then, if 
legs are required, divide the remaining 
part of the tassel into two, and tie at the 
feet. Take a needle with thread or wool 



GOLLIWOGS 



39 



of a different color from that you have 
used for the golliwog, and stitch in eyes 
and nose. Figure 15 makes a very good 
Zulu chief, if he is made in black wool. 
Figure 16 is a Red Cross nurse. She can 




Figs. 14 to 18. 

be made in light blue or gray wool, and her 
cap and apron are made of a small piece of 
tape, each sewn with a red cross. Her cap 
must be folded and stitched up the back 
like Figure 17, and her neck, wrists, and 
belt must be wound with white thread. 
The little turban golliwog. Figure 18, has 
his headdress made of a short bundle of 
wool of another color pushed through the 
folded loop of wool which forms his head. 



40 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

His arms also can be a separate bundle of 
strands pushed through the body portion. 

THE MEAL SACK 

Materials Required: — 

.A tiny piece of calico, white cotton, cotton wool, 
scent powder or lavender flov/ers, seTcral apple pips, 
needle and thread, and scissors. 

This makes a very pretty scent bag or 
pincushion. 

Take a small piece of calico or any cot- 
ton scrap, about three inches wide and six 
inches long, and fold it across the middle. 
Take a needle and cotton and tack it up the 
sides, and down again, if you cannot make 
small stitches, keeping both rows of stitch- 
es very close together. Now fray out the 
threads at the ends of your strip, and turn 
the bag inside out. You can fill it with 
lavender if you like, or stuff it with cotton 
wool and some powdered scent ; or you can 
stuff it quite tight with bran instead, and 
make a pincushion of it. Tie the opening 
up tightly with strong thread, Figure 20. 
Now take one or two pips from an apple or 
an orange, to make a mouse: if it is an 
apple pip take a penknife and scratch out 



THE MEAL SACK 



41 



eyes and ears, as in Figure 21. If you use 
an orange pip you can ink in the eye and 
the ear. Now stitch your little mouse on 





Figs. 19 to 21. 
to your meal sack, and it will be a very 
dainty Httle gift to put b}^ for Christmas. 
You can also make pretty sets of scent 
bags out of bits of ribbon or silk patterns 
from the dressmaker's, or cut off any old 
scraps of thin materials you find. Make 
six little bags of different colors and stuff 
with cotton wool and scent, and tie round 
the neck of each the end of a piece of nar- 
row baby ribbon; tie the first bag with a 
piece nine inches long, and each of the 
other bags should have a ribbon a little 
longer than the last. Then tie all the loose 
ends of the six ribbons together with a 



42 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

bow of ribbon, and you will have a charm- 
ing cluster of sachets to hang in a ward- 
robe. 



AN EMERY CUSHION 

Materials Required : — 

A tiny piece of red ribbon or siik, a tiny piece of 
calico or cotton material, strong red cotton thread, 
yellow or silk thread, green wool, a little emery 
powder, a tiny piece of hard soap or wax candle, 
scissors, and crewel needle. 

To make this you must get a little bright 
red material about three inches square and 
a little thin cotton material the same size. 
Lay both together and fold them diagonal- 
ly across from corner to corner with the 
red material inside, and with fine thread 
and needle and very small stitches sew it 
from the two loose corners up to the point 
where it is folded, so that it forms a tri- 
angular bag. Now the bag should be fold- 
ed over so that you can measure off on the 
diagonal fold the same length as the 
stitched seam, and cut away the extra ma- 
terial as in Figure 22. Now take some hard 



AN EMERY CUSHION 



43 



soap, or a piece of wax candle, and rub it 
hard all over the cotton material in order 
to prevent your emery stuffing getting out, 
trim off any extra thickness of material at 
the point, and turn the bag red side out 
and run it very finely round the opening 




Figs. 2^ to 24: 

with strong needle and thread. Draw the 
thread up a little, as in Figure 23, and now 
take your emery powder and fill up tight 
with that. If you cannot get emery get 
some fine dry sand, or you can even povmd 
up some cinders out of the fire, and fill your 
little bag very tight with the powder you 
make, and draw up the thread and stitch it 
very close. Next you must take your green 
wool or silk, and make long loop stitches 



44 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

all round the top until all the opening and 
the gathered up portion is neatly covered 
with these stitches, like sepals on a flower. 
Stitch on a little cord or loop of ribbon, and 
with a yellow thread make even stitches 
all over your little bag, till it looks just like 
a strawberry — Figure 24. 



RAT-TAIL KNITTING 

Materials Required: — 

A large cork, large reel^ or a small piece of a narrow 
cardboard roller, strong pins, preferably those known 
as 'iaundry pins," a small crochet hook, colored 
wools. 

This is known as rat-tail knitting, or 
cork or bobbin work. It can be made either 
by boring a hole in a large flat cork and 
setting seven or eight pins in round this 
hole, or by setting the pins into a reel with 
a large hole, but I have found the best 
thing is to get a small tube of cardboard 
such as paper is rolled on (out of a toilet 
roll, for instance), and to stick the pins 
firmly into the cardboard, as in Figure 25. 
Five or six pins will do. Take colored wool 



RAT-TAIL KNITTING 



45 




and loop it once round 
each pin, then wrap it 
very loosely once round 
the whole circle of pins, 
and, with another large 
pin or a small crochet 
hook, lift each loop up 
and over the last wrap of 
the thread, and over the 
head of the pin. Do this 
right round the circle of 
pins, so that you have 
Fig. 25. now a second series of 

loops made from the thread which was 
wrapped round above the first ones, while 
the first loops have begun to descend into 
the tube. Work round and round till the 
end of your knitted rat-tail appears out 
of the tube at the lower end. You can knot 
on lengths of wool of other colors and 
make very pretty reins with them. You 
can, if you like, work with two difiPerently 
colored threads, all the time using one col- 
or for the loops you lift, over a wrap thread 
of another color, alternating as you work 
round and round your circle. This is really 



46 



THE PLAYWORK BOOK 



just the way a knitting-machine works, 
very much simplified. You can do the 
same on a larger scale with a wooden ring 
into which pegs of wood are inserted, and 
this will make quite a large woollen muf- 
fler. 



A PEEP-SHOW PICTURE 

Materials Required: — 

A small piece of glass from an old photograph- 
frame, some firm brown or colored paper, any tiny 
flowers, leaves, etc., a piece of stamp paper. 

Collect a tiny bunch of the smallest flow- 
ers you can find, daisies, buttercups, vio- 
lets, even little weeds like chickweed, and 
small grasses, clover leaves, or sprays of 




Fig. 26. 



moss; tie them very loosely in a little 
bunch. Now lay your piece of glass down 



A PEEP-SHOW PICTURE 47 

on 3''our paper (the paper may be any color, 
but the blue sugar-bag paper looks very 
pretty.) Take your little bunch of flowers 
and arrange it flat on the glass, with the 
faces of the flowers pressed against the 
glass, and the leaves and moss pressed flat 
on top of them. Put the prettiest side of 
them next the glass. When all the surface 
of the glass is fairly well covered fold the 
paper over the flowers so that it makes a 
neat parcel, and fasten down the corners 
of the parcel with stamp paper. Then turn 
your parcel over, and round three sides, 
about half an inch from the edge, cut a neat 
line, so that the paper will now lift like a 
flap and show your very pretty picture. 
Seaweeds can be used instead of flowers — 
and if so, they should be arranged on the 
glass in a dish of water and floated into 
place. 



48 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 



CUP AND BALL 

Materials Required: — 

A piece of thin cardboard about eight inches square, 
scraps of tissue paper^ string, odd scraps of veiling, 
net, or thin silk or muslin, paste or mucilage, 
scissors. 

This is a very good toy to play with, and 
can be easily made. Get a piece of card- 
board about six inches square and draw a 




Fig. 27. 

line from corner to corner and cut it across. 
Then roll this triangle of cardboard into a 
long cone shape, about two and a half inch- 
es wide at the open end, and with a strip 
of thin gummed paper across the overlap- 
ping edge fix it down tight, so that it will 



CUP AND BALL 49 

not open out again. With the scissors trim 
the open end to an even round. Next take 
Si large piece of tissue or any other thin 
soft paper, and roll it into a neat round ball, 
which must loosely fit the opening of the 
cone. Wind a thread of wool over it in 
one direction, and another so that it keeps 
its shape. Now, if you can get a piece of 
a black veil, or some very thin soft net or 
muslin, cover over the ball so that it looks 
quite neat and round and even, and stitch 
a thin string about eighteen inches long to 
it. You can now cover the cup also with 
the veiling if you wish to, and if so, leave 
about three inches over at the open end, 
which must be drawn together, and the 
draw thread then pushed down inside the 
cone and fastened off at the closed end. It 
can have a little cork put in to fill it up. 
Put the end of the string through a hole 
near the opening of the cone and your cup 
and ball is finished. 



so 



THE PLAYWORK BOOK 



STORKS 

Materials Required: — 

Large flat corks, ordinary bottle corks, large and 
small. .Hairpins, burnt matches, small feathers, pen- 
knife. 

First, for the body of the big stork get 
a good large cork, and with a penknife cut 
it into a longish egg shape; then another 




Fig. 28. 
small cork must be cut almost round for 
the head. For the base the stork stands on 
one of the large corks out of pickle jars 
does best, but if you cannot get one take 
several pieces of thick cardboard and paste 
them together, or take the lid of a small 



STORKS 51 

cardboard box and make holes for the ends 
of the legs in it, and after pushing the ends 
of the hairpins through, run them into 
small pieces of cork, so that they will keep 
in place when standing. Now get a burnt 
match and sharpen it at either end, and 
push one end of it into the head, and the 
other into the body, and set the legs into 
place in the body also. Use hairpins that 
have no waves or angles in them, so that 
the bend of the pin makes the right bend 
for the leg. Make the beak of two match- 
es, trimmed to a sharp point, and you can 
use a tiny black bead for the eyes, or draw 
them with ink. The feathers for the crest 
and wings and tail must be stuck into holes, 
after having a little mucilage put on the 
end of the quill. 




52 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

A RABBIT 

Materials Required: — 

Large cork, tiny piece of brown paper, a fragf- 
ment of cotton wool, needle, strong thread, pen-knife, 
scissors. 

This also is of cork, shaped out to rather 
a point at the head and cut flat underneath. 

Cut little nicks on 

each side to define 

the feet. The ears 

are of brown paper 

cut like Figure 30, 

Figs. 29 and 30. with corners folded 

over and glued or put on with a stitch of 

strong linen thread. A small dot of ink or 

a small bead makes the eye. 

A CORK DOLL 

Materials Required: — 

Flat cork, two bottle corks, burnt matches, a tiny 
piece of thin cotton material, the same of white paper 
and of colored ribbon, a largs pin, a little black or 
brown wool, needle, mucilage. 

The body is a nice smooth cork and the 
pinafore is a piece of white paper tied on 
with the piece of ribbon The arms and 
legs are matches sharpened and well pres- 
sed in; it is best to have their points glued. 



A CORK DOLL 



S3 



31 



The head is a small cork covered with a 
piece of white cotton material cut in a cir- 
cle and tied tightly at 
the neck. Draw in the 
^ fe^^^"^^ ^y^^^ nose, and mouth 

*^^*' »-l^ ^ with a soft black pen- 

cil, or paint them with 
rather dry water-color 
paint. Take dark wool 
and make large loose 
Figs. 31 and 32. stitches for the hair, 

and then run through, from crown to neck, 
a large strong pin to fix the head to the 
body. The frill of material below the place 
the head is tied on makes a neat tucker 
when it is arranged nicely. For each foot 
lay a little piece of match on the base of 
cork, where the leg is stuck into it, and 
glue it down. 




54 



THE PLAYWORK BOOK 



A CORK HORSE 

Materials Required: — 

A flat cork, and one large and one small bottle 
cork, burnt matches^ black wool, a little black tape, 
a tiny piece of colored paper, needle, scissors, pen- 
knife. 

Use a nice smooth cork for the body, and 
cut out a Httle saddle in colored paper, and 
glue it into place, bind it round with a 

piece of tape or rib- 
bon for the girth, 
and you can make 
little stirrups out of 
wire or silver paper 
and hang them on 
from this. The head 
is a small cork out 
of a medicine bottle, 
with brown paper 
ears, cut just like the rabbit's but much 
smaller and with only one fold. The mane 
is of loops of black wool sewed on to tape, 
and bound firmly down to the match that 
makes the neck. The tail is also of black 
wool, and the stand or base can be either 
a cork or box lid; if it is the latter the legs 
must be glued into holes carefully cut to fit 
them. 




Fig. 33. 



AN ENGINE AND TENDER 55 



AN ENGINE AND TENDER 

Materials Required: — 

One large bottle cork and several small ones, one 
matchbox, large strong pins, preferably "laundry" 
pins. 

Use a large cork for the engine and a 
portion of a small cork for the funnel. The 
dome can be made of the remaining piece 



Fig. 34. 
of the latter and must be rounded at one 
end. Pin both onto the boiler portion. 
The wheels are slices of cork set into place 
with pins. The tender is a matchbox with 
the sides cut down at one place to make the 
entrance, and another matchbox makes the 
windscreen. To make the wheels of the 
tender hold steady, cut long slices of cork 
the width of the matchbox, and run the 
pins into these after piercing* the sides of 



56 



THE PLAYWORK BOOK 



the box, as seen in the top view of the en- 
gine. 



A CHEST OF DRAWERS 

Materials Required: — 

A number of empty matchboxes, a number of shoe 
buttons, colored or brown paper, mucilage. 

This is a very neat chest of draw^ers, or 
w^riting-desk, made of matchboxes; it also 
makes very good furniture for a toy gro- 




FiG. 35. 
cer's shop. Have all your matchboxes of 
one size and color, and fix them all together 
in their outer cases w^ith mucilage. Next 
get a piece of pretty colored paper (pieces 
of flow^ered w^all-paper look very nice, or 
blue paper of a sugar bag), and glue this 
round the ends and top of your chest of 
drawers. Now in the end of each box cut 



A CHEST OF DRAWERS 



57 



a small hole and push through it the shank 
of a shoe button, and peg this through with 
a tiny slip of wood or a roll of paper, so 
that it holds quite firm. Glue on to the 
bottom of your chest of drawers some but- 
tons without shanks, or wooden button 
moulds, to form the feet. 



A CRADLE 

Materials Required: — 

An empty matchbox, a cork^ needle and thready 
scissors, mucilage, penknife. 

Use an empty matchbox, and on the 
bottom glue two halves of a slice of cork 
for rockers. For the hood take the outer 
case of the matchbox and unfasten it 
where it is joined, and cut off a lengthwise 
strip about three-quarters of an inch wide, 
using one of the corners of this for the 

peak of the hood. Take 
a needle with strong 
thread, and with two 
large firm stitches fast- 
en this strip to each side 
of the box, taking care 
to make the hood a nice 
even shape. Now you can take a little mus- 




58 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

lin and lace and sew it on for little cur- 
tains and frills, to trim the cradle with, and 
roll some scraps of material up to make a 
neat mattress and pillow. 

A DOLLYS TABLE 

Materials Required: — 

A small box lid of cardboard, large reel, mucilage. 

This table is made of a round box lid 




Fig. 37. 
fixed with mucilage on to a spool. A square 
lid will do equally well. 

A DOLL'S BED 

Materials Required : — 

Small cardboard box and lid, needle and thread, 
lace or ribbon, small piece of wadding and muslin, 
or a piece of thin material, scissors. 

First cover the bottom of the cardboard 
box with a layer of soft material or wad- 
ding, with thin cotton over it, and take 
large tacking stitches to fasten this down. 
Next fix on your canopy by setting the lid 
upright on to the end of the box, and glue 



A DOLL'S BED 



59 



or fix it into place with stationers' paper 
clips or large stitches. Trim the canopy 
round the top with a little frill of lace or 
muslin, and put the same, as a valance, 
round the bed portion. You can also add 




Fig. 38. 
curtains at each side of the canopy, and, if 

you want a footboard, that also can be 

fixed across the bottom with big stitches 

or paper clips before the valance frill is 

sewed on. You can make quite large beds 

in this way, and if you have not a very 

pretty box you can trim it up with pieces of 

wall-paper pasted inside the canopy. 

A DOLL'S CHAIR 

Materials Required: — 

Slice of cork or a chestnut, large strong pins, col- 
ored wool. 

The seat is a slice of cork or a chestnut, 




60 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

and the legs and back are 
made of pins, the large ones 
called 'laundry" pins are 
the best. Wind pretty wool 
in and out between the pins 
to make the back look like 
Fia. 89. a nice cushion. You can 

cover the cork seat with a piece of colored 

material if you wish. 

ANOTHER DOLL'S CHAIR 

Materials Required: — 

Small piece of thin cardboard or post card, small 
piece of pretty material, a spool, needle and thread, 
scissors. 

This chair is harder to make than the last 
one. First cut a piece of cardboard or two 
pieces of old post cards to the shape 
marked A. It must be large enough to al- 
low it to reach halfway round the top of 
a reel at its widest part, where the corners 
are. Now tack on to this a piece of velve- 
teen or any other pretty material, so that 
the edges turn over to the wrong side of 
the cardboard. On the second piece of card 
take the material only down just a little 
below the two corners of the cardboard, 



ANOTHER DOLL'S CHAIR 61 

and you need not turn it in on the straight 
edge between these corners. Tack both 
cards together with the material outside, 
and overseam or topsew them as shown in 
Figure 40 A. Next take your reel and bind 




Fig. 40. 

tightly over each end of it a round piece of 
material, and then take a narrow strip of 
material or ribbon, and turn in the edges 
and wrap it round the reel as in 40 B, and 
tack the strip into place very tight. Now 
fix on the back as in 40 C with neat little 
stitches, and your chair is finished. 



NECKLACES 

Materials Required: — 

Needles, strong thread of linen or silk, seeds, beads, 
acorn cups, daisies. 



62 



THE PLAYWORK BOOK 



These are some of the necklaces you can 
make of things you find in the country, or 
of seeds you come across. 

Figure 41 is made of rose hips threaded 
together. If you want to make the cross or 
pendant, you can use a few small beads so 
that your radiating hips will hold more 




Figs. 41 to 43. 

steadily. These will hold better into place 
if you put a strong surrounding line of 
stitches into them. 

Figure 42 is of melon seeds or sunflower 
seeds, either will do. 

Figure 43, of the same, but threaded 



NECKLACES 63 

twice through each seed, with a tiny bead 
between and a pendant loop of seeds and 
beads below. 

Figure 44 is a snake made of acorn cups. 
Begin at the head (with is a large acorn 
with the shell cut to make eyes and mouth), 
and thread through the mouth, then thread 
on your biggest acorn cups, gradually 
choosing smaller and smaller ones till vou 
get to the tail, where it should be finished 
with a tassel. 

Figure 45 is the prettiest daisy chain. 
The stems are nipped off and the daisies 
threaded through the center. This makes 
a very beautiful wreath. 



Fig. 44i, 



u- 



THE PLAYWORK BOOK 




Figs. 45 to 47, 



A HATBAND 

Materials Required: — 

Small autumn leaves, broad tape or carpet bind- 
ing, needle and thread. 

Pick up the prettiest leaves which are 
nearly the same in size. Use a thread of 
brown mending yarn and carefully sew the 
leaves down on to a piece of broad tape or 
carpet binding. After you have iinished 
the sewing press the hatband for some 
days under a pile of newspapers or heavy 
books, so that the leaves will dry flat. 



A FAN 65 



A FAN 

Materials Required: — 

Large leaves of Spanish chestnut, smaller leaves, 
thin cardboard, needle and brown silk or vv^ool. 

This fan is made of the large leaves of 
the Spanish chestnut ; you can pick these 
up alread}^ beautifully dry and flat in the 
woods in autumn. Get about twenty of 
the same size, and cut a semicircle of firm 
cardboard and sew them on to it, so that 
the fan holds very firm, then over your 
stitches sew on smaller leaves of varying 
colors. You will find this makes a most 
beautiful ornament for your mantelpiece. 

Figures 48 to 55 are windmills, some 
very easy and some more difficult, but all 
very interesting toys. 

A PIN-WHEEL OR WHIRLIGIG 

Materials Required: — 

A square of stiff writing paper, an old pen-holder, 
skewer, or a straight twig, a strong pin or a slim up- 
holstery nail with a large head, scissors. 

This pinwheel is made of a piece of firm 
writing paper. Cut the paper into a per- 
fect square, and fold it diagonally from 



66 



THE PLAYWORK BOOK 



corner to corner and smooth out again, 
then cut along your folds to within an inch 
of the center. Now cut a tiny round of 
strong paper or a piece of a postcard about 
half an inch across and take a strong short 
pin and put it through the middle. Then 
push your pin through each right-hand cor- 




•III »L 



Figs. 48 to 50. 



ner of your square of writing paper, and 
lastly through the center of the square, and 
take a piece of stick or a penholder and 
push the point of the pin in till it is half- 
way in. You will find your windmill will 
turn as you run, if you hold it out straight 
in front of you. If you can get two good 



A TIN WHEEL OR BUZZER 67 

sticks you can use a long one as the upper 
part of a weather vane. Rut a nail 
through, rather nearer your pinwheel 
than the middle of the stick. At the other 
end make a long slit and put in a paper tail, 
so that the pinwheel will keep its head to 
the wind. Fix your nail into the end of the 
other stick, and set the stick upright in the 
ground as in Figure 50. 

A TIN WHEEL OR BUZZER 

Materials Required: — 

A circle of thin tin or a tin lid, a stick of soft 
wood^ an upholsterer's nail, tin cutters. 

This windmill is made of tin ; this is rath- 




FiG. 51.- 
er difficult to cut unless your hands are 
strong, but sometimes you can get very 
thin tin or brass from kindergarten stores, 
and it is quite easy to make it of this. Draw 



68 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

a circle about four inches across on the tin, 
round a jam pot or some such thing to give 
you a good even circle, and cut this out 
with the scissors. Now take a ruler and 
scratch lines across your circle, at right 
angles first, so that you have your circle 
divided into quarters ; now divide these 
quarters again into three or four divisions, 
and draw a smaller circle on your tin about 
three quarters of an inch, or less, from the 
outer edge. Now make a clean cut with 
the scissors from the edge to the inner 
circle along each line. The tin will always 
bend in one way as you do this, and you 
must leave the little divisions bent very 
evenly. Make a hole in the center of your 
wheel and fix it strongly with a nail into a 
stick. You will find you can hardly hold 
your windmill if you stand with it facing 
a steady wind. This windmill is a grand 
one to go. 

A WOODEN MILL 

Materials Required: — 

Two narrow strips of thin, soft wood, a stick for 
a holder, a screw^, penknife, gimlet. 

This is a wooden mill and it requires 



A WOODEN MILL 69 

some care and skill to make it. It can eas- 
ily be made with a penknife out of two 
pieces of thin, soft wood. First you must 
cut a neat socket across each piece of wood 
in the center, halfway through its thick- 
ness. The socket must be exactly the same 
width as your piece of wood, so that when 
you set each piece socket to socket they 
fit exactly. Now with an awl or pricker 
make a neat hole in the center of the two 




FjGs. 52 AND 53. 

pieces when they are fitted together. Next 
you must shave away with your penknife 
the right-hand edge of each of the ''arms'' 
or "sails" of your windmill, graduating the 
shaving evenly from the left-hand edge, 
where it is thick, to a fine blade at the 
right-hand edge. Now fit together the two 
halves and put a nail through the hole and 
fasten it into the end of a stick. If the nail 



70 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

is apt to split the stick you can put a reel 
on to the end of it and fix the nail into the 
stick through the hole of the reel. It is a 
very good thing to put your nail through a 
large glass bead between the windmill and 
the stick. 

A FEATHER WHEEL 

Materials Required: — 

Four large quills, a piece of firm cardboard, a cork, 
a box for a gas mantle, a straight stick or old pen- 
holder, paper, mucilage, needle and strong thread. 

This windmill is made of goose quills, or 
any other large strong quill; these must be 
chosen with the wider webbing of the 
feather all on the same side, and must be 
the same size. Cut a circle of firm card- 
board and lay each quill with its point in 
the middle of this circle and stitch them 
firmly down at right angles to each other. 
Glue the wrong side of the cardboard on 
to a reel or a piece of cork, and fix this on 
the end of a small stick or penholder. Now 
take a small cylindrical cardboard box — 
those used for gas mantles are excellent — 
and bore holes through opposite sides of 



A FEATHER WHEEL 



71 



. this, about half-way 
down. Push the stick 
through and fix into a 
sHt at the end of it a 
''tail" of paper or card- 
board. Take another 
piece of cardboard and 
shape it into a cone, ex- 
actly as in Figure 27 for 
Fig. 54. the cup and ball. Cut a 

hole in the bottom of your box and fit it on 
to the end of the cone, which must be cut 
down to allow the stick to pass clear of the 
end of the cone. 




Materials Required: — 

A narrow^ strip of soft wood, a cork, four luggage 
labels or post cards, a penholder, strong glue, a 
penknife, an upholsterer's nail, a gimlet. 

This is made of two pieces of wood 
socketed as in Figure S3, and with slits 
made in each end into which a luggage 
label is inserted. Use glue to hold these 
firm, and also to stick on to the center of 
the cross of wood a slice of cork, pierce a 
hole through the cork and the cross of 
wood, and through it run a nail with a fair- 



72 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

ly large head. Now make a hole at each 
outer left-hand corner of each label and 




Fia. 65. 

loop through this with a needle and a firm 
thread. Tie the thread round the nail and 
run the nail into your stick. 

AN AIR PROPELLER 

Materials Required: — 

A piece of soft w^ood three-quarters of an inch 
thick and about six or seven inches longf^ a gimlet, 
a soft wood skewer, penknife, sandpaper. 

This is a little air propeller which is 
rapidly whirled between both hands and 
released: if properly done it should return 
to the hands. The propeller is cut out of 
wood on the same principle as in Figure 
52, but it may be of thicker wood with a 
greater amount of angle to the blades. The 



AN AIR PROPELLER 



73 



stick must be carefully fitted to the hole in 
the blades and must be thicker at the other 







Fig. 66. 

end. Both blades and stick should be well 
smoothed with sandpaper. 

A REVERSING PROPELLER 

Materials Required: — 

Two pieces of wood as above, also two larger 
round sticks, such as are used to roll paper upon, 
a cork, two long nails, a piece or thin tin or card- 
board for the tail. 

This windmill is made of two propellers 
cut like Figure 56, but with the bevelling 
of the blades of one reversed so that it will 
turn in the opposite direction. A piece 
of wood or cork or a bead may be put be- 



74 



THE PLAYWORK BOOK 




Fig. 57. 

tween each propeller the tail may be made 
of cardboard or tin. 



A WATERWHEEL AND SHUTE 

Materials Required : — 

Smooth straight twigs about half an inch thick,i 
a thin wooden sweet-box or other light "wooden box, 
tw^o small pieces of white soft w^ood, about one- third 
of an inch thick and five inches long and one inch 
broad, a piece of thick wire, small tacks, pliers, a 
gimlet, small staples, strong thin string. 

This is a waterwheel with a water-shiite, 
and it turns a crank and has a little man 
attached. The waterwheel has flat blades 
with no bevelling, and a thick wire is in- 
serted through its axis. This wire should 
be bent with pliers to form the cranks. Set 
up crosswise into the ground some strong 
twigs tied firmly into position with strong 



A WATERWHEEL AND SHUTE 75 



twine. If there is a handy Httle stream it 
should be diverted to run a channel into 
your watershute, which should be of two 
flat pieces of wood nailed together at right 
angles; this can also be supported on tres- 




FiG. 58. 

ties. Set the shute so that the end is above 
the blade of the waterwheel and allows the 
water to fall on it with sufficient force to 
turn it round. The man may be cut with 
a fret-saw in three ply wood, and small 



76 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

staples should be run loosely through the 
holes at the ankles into a thicker piece of 
wood which acts as a base, so that with the 
movement of the crank he will appear to 
be turning the wheel. Fasten arms and 
legs to the body with a thick wire which 
works loosely in the holes, or with a thin 
nail which may be bent over at the point. 

A POP-GUN 

Materials Required: — 

A large goose quill, a small twig, a slice of raw 
potato, a penknife. 

This is a most simple little toy and very 
easy to make. Get a large quill feather 
with as wide and strong a quill as you can, 
and cut it off where the quill is thickest. 



(s:^ 



TWMROO 




Fia. 59. 
Then get a little stick or branch, prefer- 
ably a little bent at the thicker end, and peel 
and smooth it, so that it will fit nicely into 
the quill with the thicker bent end project- 



A POP-GUN 77 

ing. This makes the ramrod, but it must 
be fitted into the quill so that it reaches 
only within half an inch of the pointed or 
smaller end. Now take a slice of raw po- 
tato about half an inch thick or a little 
more, and into it push the wider end of the 
quill so that it takes out a neat round piece 
of the potato. With the ramrod gently 
push this first ''bullet" to the smaller end 
of the quill and take out another slice from 
the potato with the wide end. Now quick- 
ly and smartly push in your ramrod and 
you will find your first bullet shoots off 
splendidly, leaving your second one at the 
point of the quill ready for the next shot. 
Large popguns can be made with a piece 
of tin tubing, or even cardboard rollers and 
corks used as bullets. The ramrod must 
be padded with cotton wrapping in order to 
fit the tube closely. 



78 THE PLAY WORK BOOK 

A WHISTLE 

Materials Required: — 

A short piece of smooth sycamore, willow, cherry, 
or holly branch, a pea, a penknife. 

This can be made of sycamore cherry, 
holly, or willow branches, where there is a 
fairly thick coating of sappy bark outside 
the firm woody fiber. Choose a piece about 
four inches long without knots and as 
smooth as possible. Now by tapping pa- 
tiently and wetting the wood occasionally 
loosen the bark from the hard wood so that 

s4B^ 




(^^^^^ 



Fig. 60. 

it will at last slip ofl like a tube; this re- 
quires care and gentle handling. Now 
take the hard wooden core and cut into it, 
from the middle to within half an inch of 
one end, a deep curving cavity, and from 
this to the other end cut off a shallow hori- 
zontal slice. This core can now be slipped 
into the tube of bark again and a neat semi- 
circular hole cut in the latter above the 
cavity in the core, and you will find this 
an excellent whistle. Scottish children put 
a small pea into the cavity before replacing 



A LONG WHISTLE 79 

it into the tube of bark to make it "birl" 
when blown — this is a great improvement. 

A LONG WHISTLE 

Materials Required: — 

A piece of hollow bamboo about eight inches long, 
a cork, a penknife. 

This is another whistle made of a short 
length of bamboo cane, which is hollow, cut 
just below one of the ''knots" or divisions 
where the hollow tube is blocked by a solid 



Fig. 61. 
wall of the wood. If you cannot get this, 
block one open end of your hollow tube of 
wood with a cork, and for the other cut a 
piece of cork or wood to fit, with a slice off 
to leave an opening into the tube. Now cut 
semicircular holes in your tube at intervals. 
These will each produce a different note if 
the others are stopped with the fingers, and 
with care a regular sequence of the notes 
of a scale can be planned. This sequence 
will depend on the size of the tube — its 
length, and the distance between the holes. 



80 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

A SQUEAKER 

Materials Required: — 

A large goose quill, a penknife. 

This squeaker is made from a piece of a 
quill. Make a neat cut close to the small 




Fig. 62. 

end of the quill about three quarters of an 
inch long. When this is held well inside 
the mouth it will make a most alarming 
squeak when blown into. 

A BUZZER 

Materials Required: — 

A large button or small round of leather or thin 
tin, a piece of strong thin string, strong scissors. 

This can be simply made by threading a 
large button on a string, so that when the 
ends are knotted together it makes a loop 
about twelve to fifteen inches long. Keep- 
ing the button in the middle of the doubled 
length of string insert the first and second 
fingers of each hand into the looped ends, 
and rapidly whirl the button round till the 
string gets a considerable twist on it. Now 
by alternately slacking and tightening the 



A BUZZER 



81 



string the button will whizz round with a 




Fig. 63. 
slight humming noise. If a piece of tin 
with notched edges (as in Figure 51 of a 
windmill) is used, it will hum very loud. A 
piece of heavy lead foil, or a piece of firm 
leather cut into a round and notched at the 
edge can be used. 

A CLAPPER 

Materials Required: — 

A fowl's merrythought or w^ishbone, a small slip 
of thin wood, a piece of strong string, penknife. 

This is made of a fowl's wishbone or 
merrythought. Tie across from end to end 
of the bone a loop of string, and into this 

insert the end of a t.lrin 
piece of wood about four 
inches long and three 
quarters of an inch wide. 
Slip this in till the string 
is about the middle, then 
turn it round several times 
till the string is twisted 
Fig. 64. fairly tight without bend- 




82 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

ing the ends of the bone too much. Now 
slip the wooden strip along till the string is 
about an inch from the end of it and let it 
go. The twnsting of the string will bring 
the wood down against the angle of the 
bone with a smart clap. 

A TELEPHONE 

Materials Required: — 

Two gas mantle boxes, a piece of thin bladder or 
{greaseproof paper, many yards of thin twine. 

This can be made of two of the boxes 
used for incandescent gas mantles; the box 
for the larger inverted mantles is best. Re- 
move the lids from each end and cut off the 
rims carefully, so that you have two neat 
rings of cardboard. Slip one of these on 




Fig. 65. 

to one end of each box and over each rim 
tightly tie a circle of greaseproof paper — 
such as is used for covering jam pots or 
parcelling butter. Better still, use ? piece 
of bladder from the butcher's. Fasten this 
down very tight and firm, and through the 
middle of each paper or bladder insert and 



A DRUM 83 

knot the end of a fine piece of string which 
can be ten or more yards in length. If this 
is held taut without touching anything be- 
tween the two boxes, you can whisper from 
end to end and the voice will be heard quite 
distinctly. 

A DRUM 

Materials Required: — 

A gas mantle box, strong greaseproof paper or a 
piece of bladder, thin colored string. 

A little drum can be made of these eras 
mantle boxes in the same way. Stretch the 

bladder or paper of oiled 
silk tightly across each 
end, and lace strong 
threads from edge to edge 
of each piece of blad- 
p^ der or paper or silk, so 

that each lies evenly, 
Fig. 66. then bind the edges down 

with twine above the stitches; the rims 
of the lids can now be slipped on to make 
it look neat. For a drumstick, wind a 
ball of cotton wool or tissue paper on 
the end of a stick and cover with a round 
of silk or bladder also, and bind it 
tightly on to the stick. 





Fig. 67. 



84 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

A MEGAPHONE 

Materials Required: — 

A piece of thin cardboard fifteen or eighteen inches 
square^ gummed paper or thin tape, paste or mucilage, 
scissors. 

This IS made of a piece of cardboard 
about fifteen inches square. Insert a pair 

of compasses at one 
corner, and from 
the one corner to 
that diagonally op- 
posite describe a 
part of a circle and 
cut along the line marked. Now bend the 
cardboard over into a conical trumpet 
shape, and overlap the sides v^here they 
join, about an inch. Lay over this join a 
broad strip of cloth or paper pasted or 
glued firmly; you can put pins through the 
cardboard till this is set into place and 
dried. Now at the pointed end of the cone 
cut a mouthpiece wide enough to speak 
easily into; this will need a hole about 
three inches wide. When you speak into 
this megaphone your voice will carry 3. 
long distance — a quarter of a mile on a 
quiet evening — and it will give great fun 



RUSH FURNITURE 85 

to watch the effect on people who are walk- 
ing at some distance in the country. For 
convenience in holding you can paste on to 
the outside a loop or handle of tape, but do 
not push this through the cardboard as it is 
important that there should be nothing 
projecting inside the trumpet of the mega- 
phone. 

RUSH FURNITURE 

Materials Required: — 

Green rushes, green wool or thick cotton thread. 

This chair and table are made of the 
green rushes from the marshes, and are 
very pretty things to make. For the little 
chair, first take the bundle of rushes which 
forms the curved back, and curve it into 
place and tie it round here and there with a 
little wool to keep it firm while the seat is 
being made. This will be better described 
by the diagram than by words. Each rush 
composing the seat must be added succes- 
sively from the back towards the front, 
and when arranged, and the ends turned 
back or forwards to form front and back 



86 



THE PLAYWORK BOOK 



legs, stays can be made of single rushes 
and all carefully bound in neatly with wool; 



66 




Figs. 68 and 69. 
wool holds much more firmly than cotton 
thread. The table, Figure 69, is made in 
the same way. 



RUSH WHIP 

Materials Required: — 

Green rushes. 

The whip is the easiest thing you can 
make of rushes. It is bound at intervals 
with wrapping of the rushes themselves. 



RUSH RATTLE 



87 




Fig. 71. 

RUSH RATTLE 

Materials Required: — 

Green rushes, snnall round pillbox. 

This is made on the same lines as the 
whip, but the bundle or sheaf of rushes is 
opened out and made to surround a small 
cardboard box with a pebble or a pea in it, 
and another rush laced round to keep it in 
place. The diagram will show how to com- 
plete it; very tight firm binding is needed: 
it is better to do it with wool rather than 
with rushes. 



88 



THE PLAYWORK BOOK 



PAPER BEADS 

Materials Required: — 

Colored paper^ wallpaper or magazine covers, a 
knitting needle, scissors, a ruler, mucilage. 

This shows how to make beads of various 
shapes out of paper; it can be of any color. 
To make the long pointed beads marked A, 
take a ruler and rule on your paper lines as 




Fig. 72. 
in B, and if the paper is thin they shoula be 
strips about twelve inches long, and the 
wider end of the wedge can be one inch or 
one and a half inches. The strip must 
taper to a point at the other end. Now take 
the wide end of your strip and roll it very 
tightlv and evenly round a steel knitting 



FISH BONE TEA-SET 89 

needle with the colored side out, and fix 
down the point neatly with mucilage as in 
the darkened portion in the diagram. 
Smaller beads of various shapes can be 
made, but all on the same method. Leave 
the beads on the knitting needle till the 
mucilage is quite dry, and give them a coat 
of clear varnish. Such beads look well also 
with blobs of paint or gilt on them. 

FISH BONE TEASET 

Materials Required : — 

Large and small vertebrae of codiiish, a little gilt and 
water color paint. 

This little tea set is very dainty and is 
made of the separate vertebrae or back- 
bones of large flat fish. When the bones 
are soft after boiling, they can be easily 




Fig. 73. 
bent or cut into the required shapes, and 



90 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

the different sizes of bones used for cups or 
tea pot can be decorated with little pat- 
terns in gilt paint or water-colors. 

A RUSH OR RAFFIA BAG 

Materials Required: — 

Green rushes or raffia» fine stringy, a small piece of 
cardboard^ a tape needle. 

This is a little bag made of raffia or 
rushes, woven on to a warp of string. The 
string should first of all be wound very 
loosely on to cardboard, and if necessary 
slits or notches can be cut in it to hold the 
string firm. Now take your rush or raffia 




Fig. 74. 

and darn up one side of the card and down 
the other and back again, leaving one long 



THE HARVEST PLAIT 91 

side of the card free. You can weave one 
thread up and one down, or one thread up 
and two down as you please. When the 
weaving- is finished draw out the cardboard 
and decorate your bag with Httle tassels, 
and add plaited handles. 

THE HARVEST PLAIT 

Materials Required: — ■ 

Two long steins of straw^s, or stalks of oats, barley 
or wheat, with ears left on, a little thread. 

This is made by Scottish children to 
wear in their hats at harvest time. Take 
two long firm straws with the ears on them 




Fig. 75. 
and tie them together firmly just below the 
ears. Now flatten out each straw and bend 



92 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

one across the other, and the first across 
that again, making each fit close and fold 
evenly at the bend. You will find this holds 
quite firmly, when tied at the end, and 
makes a very pretty ornament. The same 
plait can also be done with strips of paper 
an inch wide, and used as a decoration at 
Christmas. 



DOLLS' FURNITURE 

Materials Required: — 

Some branches of willow, freshly cut, some laundry 
pins, a penknife, a little broad tape or carpet binding, 
needle and thread. 

These little chairs and stools can be very 
neatly made of willow or privet branches, 
or any twigs where there is a small core of 
soft pith which will allow a strong pin to 
fit in exactly. All the lengths for the \ar- 
ious legs and spars of each article must be 
measured and cut very accurately before 
beginning to put them together ; use a very 
sharp penknife to do the cutting. The pins 
used should be fairlv strong ones. In the 
diagrams a broad piece of tape or ribbon 
has been stretched tightly round the spars 



DOLL'S FURNITURE 



93 



back and front, and its end stitched to- 
q-ether underneath, but this is not neces- 




sary. Two or more spars can be set across 
to form the seat, only if too many pins are 




Fig. 77. 

pushed through one spar there is a ten- 
dency for it to spUt. 



94 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

A WHEELBARROW 

Materials Required : — 

A piece of cork or a button mould, an empty match- 
box, matches, needle and strong thread, a tiny piece of 
wire. 

A little wheelbarrow can be nicely made 
out of a match or cardboard box. The legs 
and handles are of matches, and may be 
fixed on with mucilage and held steady 

with large strong 
stitches. The sup- 
port for the wheel 
is made of a strip 
taken from the lid 
of the matchbox 
^^^' '^* and narrowed at 

one end where it supports the wheel. The 
wheel may be made of a slice of cork or a 
button mould fixed on with a piece of wire 
bent into a knot at each end to prevent it 
being pulled through the support. 




A FERN BASKET 



95 



A FERN BASKET 

Materials Required: — 

Fresh-cufc willow twigs, laundry pins, four large 
beads. 

This is made of fairly thick twigs cut 
carefully in the same way as Figure 84, 
and pinned firmly together. Beads or small 




Fig. 79. 



buttons can be fixed on for feet. The 
basket should be entirely lined with pretty 
moss, and then the earth put in and ferns 
planted in it. It must be kept very moist, 
and can be hung from the roof if pre- 
ferred. 



96 



THE PLAYWORK BOOK 



A DOLL'S STOOL 

Materials Required: — 

The fireproof base of a gas mantle, a tiny piece of 
cardboard, a liltle wadding and a tiny piece of silk 
or velvet, mucilage or needle and thread. 

This is made from the earthenware sup- 
port for a gas mantle. Take a piece of 

cardboard and draw 
round the circle of the 
mantle support on it, 
and cut it out. Then 
with a padding of tis- 
sue paper or wadding 
and a piece of pretty 
material make a neat cushion, using the 
cut-out circle of cardboard as a foundation ; 
stitch or glue this neatly on the under side 
and fix it on to the support. 




Fig. 80. 



A DOLUS STOOL OF FEATHERS 97 

A DOLL'S STOOL OF FEATHERS 

Materials Required : — 

Four or five quills from a chicken's wing, some very 
fine pins, a little thread, scissors. 

This is made of small quill feathers and 
is very pretty. Use feathers which are 
large enough to hold a pin inside their hol- 
low tubes. Cut off a thick piece of quill 
for each of the four legs and entirely strip 
them of webbing. Cut and strip rather 

IL 




* Fig. 81. 
thinner ones for the spars to support these, 
and fix as in Fig. 76, using very slender 
pins. If the quills used for legs are strong 
enough, the feathers for the sea may be 
pinned on also, but if they are inclined to 
split, those for the seat must be lashed on, 
and therefore must be cut so that they pro- 
ject at the ends beyond the legs. Cut each 
of these like A in the diagram, so that the 
webbing is cut straight across at the end 



98 



THE PLAYWORK BOOK 



furthest from the point of the quill. Fix 
each of these four quills into place with the 
webbing overlapping the sloping end of the 
quill in front of it. 

A PORTER^S HANDBARROW 

Materials Required : — 

A wooden sweet box, a fret saw and sha'rp pen- 
knife, a reel^ small tacks, upholsterer's nails. 

This can be made of nice pieces of soft 
wood such as are used for grocers' sweet- 




^^^^ 




Fig. 82. 
boxes or fruit boxes. Cut the two long 

sides with a saw and bevel them off in a 

curve to form the handles — they should be 

six to eight inches long. The crosspiece at 

the end should be about three inches, and 

also the two crossbars. Fasten the sides 

to the end about the middle of the latter, so 

that a piece projects below the sides wide 



A CRANE 99 

enough to support the wheels — these 
should be made of a reel cut in half and 
fastened on with a large-headed nail. 
Smooth all down with coarse sandpaper. 

A CRANE 

Materials Required : — 

A wooden sweet box, three large reels, one small 
one, tacks, upholstery nails, string, mucilage, a fret 
saw^ a large coat hook. 

This should also be made of a box of soft 
wood from the grocer. The semicircu- 
lar sides should be about four inches long, 
where they are fastened to the base; they 
may either be glued or nailed on to this. 
The base should be about seven inches long 
and three inches wide. Before fastening 
on the side-pieces bore a hole at the end of 
each to insert the thick wire which turns 
the large reel used to wind the cord, and 
also set in the tacks which support the 
crane at each side. The sides of the crane 
should be about three quarters of an inch 
wide at the lower end, and should taper to 
about half an inch at the other end; they 
should be about seven inches long. Near 
the lower end use another smaller reel or a 



100 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

block of wood as a stay to hold the sides of 
the crane; it should be of such a size as to 
hold the ends of the crane firmly between 




Fig. 83. 
the nails in the sides of the base. At the 
other end set in a very small reel, with a 



ATOP 



101 



long slim nail, so that it will easily turn on 
it. Now take a good strong dressmaker's 
hook, such as is used for coats or mantles, 
fasten it to a length of strong string, and 
wind one end round the large reel, setting 
the hook end over the end of the crane. 



A TOP 

Materials Required : — 

A large reel» a skewer or penholder, a fret saw, a 
penknife. 

This is made of a large reel cut in half 
and the roller portion cut away into a point 
with a penknife. The pin is made of a 
wooden skewer or penholder with the 




Fig. 84. 
point projecting slightly beyond the cut 
portion of the reel. These are very good 
tops and spin very steadily. 



102 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 



A TEETOTUM 

Materials Required : — 

A small block of soft wood, an old penholder, a 
sharp penknife, a gimlet. 

This is made from a square block of wood 
cut sharply to a point with a peg sunk well 
into a close-fitting hole. Each flat side of 
the top has on it a letter or a number, and 
the game is to spin it round, and according 
to which letter or number falls upward 
each player takes or makes so many coun- 
ters to the pool. The letters generally used 
are — 




Fig. 85. 
P=pay one, N=nothing, T=take one, W 
=win all. Beans or counters are usually 
played for. 



BOW AND ARROW 103 

BOW AND ARROW 

Materials Required : — 

A branch of pliable smooth wood, strong twine, a 
penknife, two goose quills. 

Take a smooth even branch of willow, 
cane, or other pliable wood about three 
quarters of an inch thick and about two 
feet or two and a half feet long, and round 
the smaller end cut a shallow groove about 
one and a half inches wide, and about half 
an inch from the end. x\bout one inch from 
the thicker end cut a notch sloping inwards 
towards the middle of the stick just deep 
enough to hold firm a piece of strong 
string. Next bind round about four inches 




*L©. 



Figs. 86 and 87, 



at the middle of the stick with string, lay- 
ing the end of the string along the stick, so 
that the binding will cover it all but three 
inches. Bind the four inches very closely, 
and tie the end of the binding to the spare 



104 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

end of the string and knot it and cut away 
the ends. Now bind over in the same way, 
round the groove at the end of the stick, 
and knot the free end of the string to the 
spare end under the binding, and stretch 
the free end of the string very taut, so that 
the stick bends a Httle. Make a loop in the 
end of the string which can be easily 
slipped in and out of the notch at the other 
end of the bow. When not in use keep the 
looped end loose from the notch. 

The arrows must be of very straight 
light sticks or thin bamboo, and must be 
scraped or sandpapered perfectly smooth. 
At the point cut a long slit, and into it slip 
a long and very slender nail, and bind it 
round across the notch with strong linen 
thread. You can file off the head of the 
nail. At the other end make a similar but 
longer notch, and into it slip a portion of 
a quill feather with one side of the webbing 
practically cut away. Arrange both pieces 
of the quills so that they project the same 
distance at each side from the wooden 
shaft. Bind round the arrow with linen 
thread both above and below the quills, and 



A DART 



105 



at the extreme end deepen the mouth of the 
notch so that it makes a groove into which 
you can fit the string of the bow. 



A DART 

Materials Required : — 

A six-inch stick of soft wood, a long nail, pincers, 
a file, a piece of stifiF writing paper, a penknife or 
fret saw^. 

This dart is made of a piece of soft wood 
about six inches long, and into 
the sharpened end a slim long 
nail is driven; the head may 
be nipped or filed off so that 
the point will stick into the 
ground or into a target. 
Across the other end cut or 
saw two notches at right 
angles, for about one inch 
down, and fit into these a 
square of paper folded neatly 
into ''diagonals and diame- 
ters" — this makes the "feathering" of the 
dart. Smooth the dart with sandpaper. 




Y 



Fig. 88. 



106 THEPLAYWORK BOOK 

A CROSSBOW 

Materials Required : — 

A bow-stick of pliable wood, strong string, a smooth 
lath of thin wood^ a fret saw, an awl, a penknife, a 
long nail. 

This bow is made somewhat more elabo- 
rately than in Figure 86, and shoots off 
pebbles or bullets. The bow itself must be 
tapered evenly towards either end, and in 




^IGS. 3? AND 90. 

the middle it must be bevelled flat for about 
two and a half inches at one side, and a 
slight groove run right round the stick at 
either end of the bevelled portion. Next 
take a thin lath or flat thin piece of wood, a 
quarter of an inch thick and rather less 
than the length of the bow. Taper it from 



A CROSSBOW 107 

two and a half inches wide at one end to 
one and a half at the other, and lay the 
hroad end across the flattened portion of 
the bow with about one inch projecting. 
Mark on the crosspiece the width of the 
bow-stick and cut into each side of the 
crosspiece a deep sharp nick, leaving 
about one inch between each opposite set 
of nicks. Now draw your bow to the full 
extent of its curve without running the 
risk of breaking it, and mark on the cross- 
piece where the bowstring crosses it when 
the bow is drawn, and here cut a narrow 
slot right through the cross-piece. I/ito 
this insert a trigger as in Figure 90. The 
trigger must be of wood and should curve 
at one or both ends, and should be pinned 
through into its slot with a long thin nail, 
in such a position that the curved end will 
broad end across the flattened portion of 
full, and will lie well into the slot when the 
string is released. Now bind the cross- 
piece on to the side of the bow by strings 
fitting tightly into the four nicks and run- 
ning round the grooves round the bow- 
stick. This will leave the crosspiece free 



108 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

of any bindings which might interfere with 
the bullet or ''quarrel" as it leaves the bow. 



A CATAPULT 

Materials Required : — 

A forked branch, strong round elastic, a scrap of 
leather, fine string, penknife, scissors. 

Take a firm forked branch about three 
quarters of an inch thick, or a little less, 
and trim the two forks evenly, and run a 




Fia. 91. 

groove about three quarters of an inch 
wide round each, near the end. Into these 
bind very tightly two pieces of very strong 



A TARGET 109 

round elastic about five inches long-. Next 
take a firm piece of leather about one inch 
wide and two inches long, trim it away at 
the corners, and make a hole at each end 
into which insert the free ends of the elas- 
tic, turning them back on themselves and 
binding firmly. It may be well to mention 
that there are very strict police regulations 
about shooting with bows and catapults, 
and those who use them must only do so 
away from houses or traffic. 

A TARGET 

Materials Required : — 

A bandbox^ thin paper, string, scissors, ink, and 
paintbrush. 

A very c.imple target may be made by 
using a round bandbox and stretching over 
its open mouth a piece of newspaper, w^iich 
may be kept in place by slipping over it 

the rim taken off the 
Hd. Mark rouo^hlv 
on this the ''Bull's 
Eye" in ink, and hang 
up the box by means 
of loops of string 
Fig. 92. through the side. The 




1 10 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

newspaper can be renewed as often as is 
necessary. A square box will do just as 
well. 

A RAFT 

Materials Required : — 

A quantity of reeds or thin straight twigs, a piece 
of cork, strong string. 

This is made of dry reeds or any other 
light straight sticks — bamboo is good. It 
ma}^ be made of any size and may even be 
made large enough to carry one or more 
persons, if the size and strength of the 
branches and lashings is duly proportioned, 
but for a toy reeds will do nicely. Lay 
down first the crossbar beneath the raft 
and then space out the raft itself to fit it, 
leaving a little space between each reed. 




Fig. 93. 

Take a strong thin string and fasten it with 
a tight loop over the end of the first reed, 
turn it down and round the lower cross- 
spar, and then up and around the upper 



A CANOE 



111 



one, and lay in the next reed, and so on. 
When the first row of lashings is done lay 
on the second pair of crossbars, and if 
there is any difficulty about lashing the 
string a large darning-needle may help you, 
but if the lashing is done in the right direc- 
tion this is not needful. If a mast is want- 
ed, a reel, or a cork with a hole in it, may 
be lashed down to the raft as in the dia- 
gram, and the mast can be set firmly into 
this. 



A CANOE 

Materials Required : — 

Some cheap cloth or shelving, some **basketry 
cane," soft string or fine tape, scissors, penknife, a 
large strong needle. 

The best material for this is thin shelv- 
ing cloth and it must be made at least 




Fig. 94. 
twelve inches long. Double your shelving 
cloth, and outline on it the pattern of the 



112 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

side of the canoe, which should be cut in 
brown paper; this must be quite straight 
at the upper sides, not curving as it ap- 
pears in the drawing. La}^ the paper pat- 
tern with the hne of the bottom of the ca- 
noe at the fold of the oilcloth. Now take 
two long pieces of cane, such as is used for 
basket-work, and with a large needle, and 
very thick thread, lash each length of cane 
along the outsides of the boat from end to 
end, keeping the shiny side of the cloth out- 
wards. A short thick tapestry needle is 
best, and the lashing must be steady and 
even, but if it is difficult to stitch through 
the cloth an awl or pricker can be used to 
make the holes before beginning to stitch. 
Now take another piece of cane and bend 
about one inch at one end and lash this 
bent portion to the side of the boat about 
one-third of the way along the "gunwale" 
where it is already lashed, and lash it over 
firmly to this on the inside of the boat. 
Bend the cane now across to the opposite 
side of the canoe and meantime tie tightly 
together the ends of the cane that is lashed 
from end to end of the boat, and set in this 



A CANOE 113 

icross-piece so that it keeps the two sides 
of the boat apart at the right angle. Fix 
m the second crosspiece likewise, and then 
ilash the open ends of the boat firmly to- 
igether. The canoe should be rather wide 
and shallow, or it will be inclined to lie on 
)its side unless ballast is added by weight- 
ing it at the bottom. If weight is needed 
'the best thing for this sort of boat is one 
or two of the heavy lead buttons to be had 
(at a tailor's for weighting garments ; they 
•can be lashed on with strong thread 
'through the holes. Quite large canoes can 
'be made in this way, and if a tight ''deck- 
ing" of thin waterproof material be 
istretched across at both ends from the 
tcrosspiece it makes a vessel almost iden- 
itical with the Eskimo "kayak" which used 
'to be used round the coasts not so very 
]long ago. 



114 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

A SHIP 

Materials Required : — 

A block of soft wood ten or twelve inches long, 
about three inches w^ide and two inches deep^ nine 
post cards, three skew^ers or old wooden knitting- 
pins, a cork, a piece of heavy w^ire, dressmakers' eye- 
lets, some small staples, fine string, a gimlet, a sharp 
penknife, small tacks, scissors, mucilage. 

This is the simplest sort of a ship to 
model in wood; all wooden boats require 
carefulness in their modelling and balance. 
This can be made from six to twelve inches 
long, and in soft wood. Let your block of 
wood be about four times its width, rough- 
ly speaking. Rule a line up to center of 
your block to mark the keel and cut away 
from this with a very sharp knife to the 
curving outlines of the deck which must be 
drawn on the top side of the block. It 
would be impossible, in the space allowed 
for diagrams, to give details for modelling 
the body of the boat, but any boy can shape 
it if he is careful and observes, from pic- 
tures or actual boats or models, how to do 
it. When the body of the vessel is shaped 
and smoothed down with a file and sand- 



A SHIP 



115 



paper, take a piece of heavy thick wire, and 
bend it at either end and sharpen the ends 
into points with a file and hammer it into 
the keel; or, if preferred, a deep groove 
may be cut with a gouge and a strip of lead 
inserted. The rudder suggested here can 
be made either of wood, or of a double 
piece of tin with a piece of thick wire ham- 
mered in at the fold and left with one end 




SHO#^ Trtt 
STfeRM or XHt SHIP 
Nl/lTH ftuOPtR TWl«< 
To Ortt Slot 




Fig. 95. 

projecting, so that it fits through a hole 
in the stem and forms a tiller. The rudder 
must have a hole pierced at the lower cor- 
ner, and into this fix a small staple which 



116 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

must work loosely in its hole, and after the 
rudder is fixed in position this staple must 
be hammered into the stern of the boat. 
Figure 95 A shows the stern end with rud- 
der fixed into place. Next cut a bowsprit 
of wood and with two staples fix it firmly 
on to the deck. Take three pieces of cork 
or three half reels, and glue or nail them to 
the deck — this will make a good hold for 
the masts. Then along each side of the 
boat at intervals fasten on a strong dress- 
maker's "eye" (for a hook) with its two 
small loops bent so that they overlap; the 
nail can be set through this. These eyelets 
are meant to hold the ''stays" which keep 
the masts steady. Now take nine postcards, 
and about half an inch from the edge in the 
middle of each long side cut neatly a hole 
big enough to slip your masts through, with 
a strong needle, a piece of strong thin 
string or stout linen thread, knotting it 
with a large knot at the end. Lay the post 
cards flat so that they just touch and set 
the mast through the holes — a long wooden 
knitting-pin makes a capital mast — and the 
knob can be left on to finish it at the top. 



A SHIP 117 

About one inch or more above the top sails 
make a sHght groove round the mast, and 
round this bind tightly the threads laced 
through the cards, tightened so that each 
card bends a little; carry down these 
threads or stays nov^ to the eyelets and 
fasten them firmly. Take another stay to 
the bow^sprit and lash it down and carry it 
on to meet the front of the keel, and fasten 
it in with a tiny tack or a pin. Gum on 
small paper flags to the masts. This makes 
quite a good little sailing ship and it is not 
difficult to make. 



118 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 



A PROPELLER 



Materials Required : — 

A slip of thin wood, a small strip of tin, strong 
round elastic, strong tin cutters, a penknife oi* fret 
saw, an awl. 

This is a little propeller which with cer- 
tain alterations can be fixed to any boat. 

Take a piece of tin, as in Figure A, and 
pierce it with two holes and file them quite 
smooth, and slightly bend 
either end left and right 
from the holes. Now take 
a piece of thin wood cut as 
in the diagram, with a long 
wide slot, so that it form.s a 
sort of fork, and with 
screws or tacks hammer 
this on to the stern of your 
vessel at the two holes, so 
that it projects with the 

whole fork clear of the vessel. Now thread 
strong elastic through the holes in the tin 
blades of the propeller with the ends knot- 
ted firmly, making a double loop, each end 
looping over the respective forks. Twist 




Fig. 96. 



A DOLL 119 

this tightly round on the same principle as 
in the making of the wishbone clapper, and 
when the twist is released it will propel 
your boat a considerable distance either 
backwards or forwards according to the 
direction the thread is twisted. 



A DOLL 

Materials Required : — 

An old knitted stocking or pair of cotton gloves, 
two shoe-buttons, strong thread, some brow^n or black 
mending yarn^ tissue paper, wadding, scissors, darning- 
needle. 

This doll is made of old stockings or old 
knitted or woven gloves. If only black 
stockings can be got it can be a nigger doll, 
or it can have its face alone made of light- 
colored glove. The stuffing must be of 
tissue paper roughly shaped to the right 
size and wrapped round with some yarn to 
keep it shapely, or this may be again wrap- 
ped round with a layer of cotton wadding. 
Shape the arms and legs separately, and 
fasten over the knitted covering very neat- 
ly with big, but firm, stitches. Stitch a 
line right through at the wrists and flatten 



120 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

out the hands, and make lines of stitching 
to mark the fingers and the line of the toes : 




Fig. 97. 
make a sort of "dart" where the leg bends 
at the ankle. 

For the head — put an extra wad of soft 
padding under the face portion so that it is 



A DOLL 121 

very soft and bulgy, and stitch firmly into 
this two shoe-buttons for eyes. Take a 
large darning-needle and take your stitch- 
es right through the head to the back; use 
very strong doubled linen thread. The 
knitted covering used for the head may be 
all gathered into the back and simply flat- 
tened roughly into place v^ith big stitches, 
as you will cover it with ''hair" later on. 
Now take your needle through again and 
make the two tiny stitches for the nostrils, 
and pull these stitches back very tight also. 
Two more stitches form the mouth with a 
wee one below to make a hollow below the 
lips. Now firmly stitch the head into 
place, and with brown or black knitting or 
mending yarn carefully make large stitches 
radiating from the crown of the head to the 
forehead: do not pull these tight, and use 
double wool if you like. Make long loose 
loops of wool all round the back of the head 
and above them stitch as before into the 
crown. This makes a really very good doll 
if it is carefully made, and not too hurried- 
ly done. 



122 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

A BROWNIE 

Materials Required : — 

A pair of old kid or leather gloves, tissue paper, 
flat milliner's wire, strong thread of the color of the 
gloves, stamp-paper, ink or water color paint, scissors, 
strong needle. 

This is a very jolly little fellow, and he is 
made of old kid gloves. His head and body 
are stuffed with tissue paper. The head is 
just wrapped with a square piece cut from 
the wrist of the glove neatly gathered in at 
each side and tightly tied. . The loose ends 
must then have each one corner trimmed 
off in a sloping line towards the neck; this 
forms his flappy pointed ears. Now get 
two tiny rounds of gummed stamp-paper 
and ink on each an eyeball, only partially 
covering the paper, and gum these on for 
the eyes, and with pen or paintbrush put 
in his mouth and nose. You can give him 
a very woeful expression if you make his 
mouth turn down. Cover his body with the 
back of the gloves, so that the three 
''points" or rows of stitching make a trim- 
ming for his jacket. The legs and arms 
are made of slips of the kid stitched care- 



A BROWNIE 123 

fully over the flat wire used by milliners. 
The ends of the strips are left free and cut 
to a pointed flap to form feet and hands. 




Fig. 98. 
Stitch limbs and head very firmly into 
place and bend at elbows and knees. This 



124 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

Brownie can be made to sit down and take 
many different positions ; he is a very life- 
like little doll. You can also make him a 
wee nightcap out of a knitted glove and 
put a feather in it, and dress him with a 
little cloak. 

KITES 

Materials Required : — 

Thin straight sticks of canes, strong paper or thin 
cotton material^ strong thin string, strong paste, large- 
eyed needle. 

These are several of the commoner and 
easier kites to make. They are usually 
made of paper pasted over the frame, but 
it is in all cases better if children will Lake 
the trouble to make their kites of thin cot- 
ton material and tack or baste it into place 
with large neat stitches; this really takes 
very little more time than pasting. The 
frames in every case should be of the light- 
est and straightest sticks possible to find. 
You can sometimes get very good ones 
which are used in strengthening cardboard 
boxes, or if you do not mind spending a few 
cents the narrow slips of wood used in 
making picture-frames are the very thing 



KITES 125 

and any picture-framer can supply them. 
Perhaps the most usual kite is that 
shown in Figure 99. The two cross-sticks 
are first firmly lashed in position and the 
ends notched and tightly fixed in place with 
tight "stays" of string. Now cut your pa- 
per or cloth at least two inches wider all 
round than the outline of your framework, 
cutting away the angles at the corners, so 
that you have a neat flap to turn over all 
round. Never use gum or mucilage for a 
kite, good strong paste is best, if it is to be 
made of paper. Now at the three points 
where 3^our "balances" are to be attached 
to the kite, paste on a little square patch of 
cloth so that the string or "balance" as it is 
called does not tear the fabric or paper, and 
fasten the ends of your two strings through 
the two upper patches and knot it firmly 
round your wooden framework. The loose 
ends of your balances must now be run 
through the third patch and fastened to the 
vertical spar of the frame. The string of 
the kite is fastened round these balances by 
a slipknot. Next add the tail, which needs 
careful adjustment to the weight of the 



126 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

kite; it can be weighted with rolls of paper 
at intervals, or little bundles of fresh grass. 
Scottish boys often weight it at the end 
with a "divot" which is a little piece of 




Figs. 99 to 101. 
actual turf, both grass and root, all to- 
gether. 

Figures 100 and 104 are another form of 
kite most commonly used in Scotland. This 
needs only one straight spar of wood, and 



KITES 127 

the curved ''bow" at the top can be made 
of light cane, such as is used for basket- 
making; or what is very good, if enough 
can be got, is a length of flat steel such as 
is used in lady's corsets. Fasten the ''bow'' 
to the spar by lashing it into a notch or 
groove at the top and bend it evenly and 
fasten it firmly by stays of string as in 
Figure 104, both across and to the end of 
the spar. Now lay on to your paper or 
cotton material and cut it out as before in 
Figure 100, with a good turnover to paste 
or stitch down, and add the patches where 
the balances are attached. These kites look 
very gay if a tassel of colored paper or wool 
is added at each end of the bow. 

Figure 101 is a very good kite to make if 
a really large one is wanted. The two long 
cross-spars of wood must be notched to fit 
each other about one-third of their length 
from the top of the kite, and stays of string 
must be so arranged that they spread about 
twice as wide at the bottom as they do at 
the top. This kite must have four patches 
to insert its balances through and the slip- 
knot of the kite-string is fixed around both. 



128 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

Another '"balance" should be fixed from the 
lower corners of the kite from which the 
tail is hung. This is a very steady kite. 

Figure 102 — a box kite. 

This is a comparatively modern form of 
kite and looks very complicated. It is real- 
ly less so than it looks. Take two long nar- 
row strips of thin cotton material about 
eight inches wide and four and a half feet 
long (this is for a kite about thirty inches 
long). Have four straight thin spars of 
wood about thirty inches long, and after 
joining the two ends of your strips of cloth 
together make at intervals a narrow "cas- 
ing" into which insert the ends of your 
spars. You can either place the casings 
at equal distances on your material, or you 
can arrange it so that the open ends of 
your kite form oblongs. Now have four 
flat spars of thin wood measured to make 
diagonals at each ''box" end of your kite, 
and bore a tiny hole in the middle of each 
to insert a pin when the kite is stretched. 
At the ends of these diagonals cut a rec- 
tangular notch to hold the spars apart, tie 
the kite-string considerably nearer one end 



KITES 



129 



of the kite than the other, or you can at- 
tach a balance and fix on the kite-string- by 
a slipknot. This kite needs no tail, and 
can be folded and rolled away by slipping 
out the diagonal spars. 

Figure 103 — a round box kite. 

This can be made of very strong brown 
paper pasted so as to form a wide tube, like 
a large paper bag with the bottom cut out. 
Only two spars are needed. Inside the pa- 



102. 




Figs; 102 and 103. 
per tubes arrange near each edge a circle 

of cane, as is used in basket-work or for 

stretching out the crown of a cap. Set this 

into place and lace through the paper a 

strong string and lash the cane through to 

the spar. This should hold quite steady if 



130 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 




V^tGs. 104 ^o 107, 
it is well done, but it can, of course, have a 

third straight spar if necessary. Attach 



A MONKEY ON A STICK 131 

the string as in the other box kite. 

Figures 105, 106, 107 — a plane kite. 

This is a most beautiful and graceful kite 
and combines the box kite and the older 
varieties. The box portion is made with 
casings run into the cotton material at 
equal intervals so as to form a three-sided 
box. Fix in your three spars, all equal in 
size, and along each side fix a plane, or 
wing, of thin cotton material; it can be of 
another color and looks very gay if this is 
done. Make a little bag or pocket at the 
outer corner of each wing, and into this 
insert the ends of the fourth spar, so that 
the latter may be slipped out and the kite 
folded up. The string should be attached 
near the "nose" of the kite. It needs no 
tail. 

A MONKEY ON A STICK 

Materials Required : — 

Some thin three-ply vrood, two long knitting-pins 
two small reels, a piece of hat wire, some small 
staples, pliers, an aw^l^ a fret saw, w^ater color paint& 
and brushes, mending w^ool. 

Draw your monkey carefully on the 
three-ply wood, the body and limbs all sep~ 



132 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

arate, and a thin stump on to which the tail 
must be fastened. With the awl pierce tiny 
holes through arms, body, and legs, where 




Fig. 108. 
they are attached, and insert a piece of 
wire, and with the pliers turn a small close 
knot in it on each side to prevent it coming 
out. Small wire paper clips will do instead 
if they can be got. Now saw off the rims 
of your two reels — they must be the same 



A MONKEY ON A STICK 133 

size — and into one of your reels fasten two 
staples over the pin and into the reel, so 
that they hold the pin very tightly, catch- 
ing the pin just at one end. With another 
staple through each hand fasten the arms 
of your monkey to this reel, and slip the 
other reel round the same knitting-pin and 
extend your monkey to its fullest length, 
and now fix the other knitting-pin to the 
second reel so that its point projects a lit- 
tle way through the first reel. Keeping 
the monkey stretched to its fullest length 
fasten his feet with staples to the second 
reel, and be sure that the limbs work quite 
loosely in these staples. Now with mend- 
ing yarn make a tassel and fasten it to the 
end of your hat wire, and wrap the wire all 
the way up with it almost to the end. Then 
proceed to lash the wire to the stump of 
the tail and bend the tail in a nice curve; 
this will vibrate when your monkey is 
worked up and down. 



134 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

A DANCING LADY 

Materials Required : — 

Strong heavy vrhite cardboard or thin wood^ sharp 
knife or fret saw, crinkled paper, water color paints, 
a tiny portion of a quill, a tiny roll of tin or lead 
foil, small fine pins or wire, a small piece of narrow 
ribbon, a little writing paper, mucilage, string, scissors, 
pliers. 

This dainty little figure can be made to 
dance along a double string and can be very 




Pig. 10.9, 
pretty. Cut out the body and legs and 
arms all separately; they may be drawn 



A DANCING LADY 135 

on white paper, or cut out and pasted on to 
the cardboard. If you find it difficult to 
make a pretty face, a suitable one may be 
cut from some picture post card and past- 
ed on. The arms and legs must be fastened 
on to the body with a little wire which 
should be run through a tiny bead and 
twisted so that it does not come out. Roll 
the lead foil into a liitle long weight and 
stitch one down to the lower portion of 
the body both at the back and front. The 
crinkled paper skirt must be gathered on 
a draw-thread with a needle and tied even- 
ly and tightly round the waist and fastened 
neatly with a little ribbon sash. Through 
the stomach of the little figure insert a 
tiny length of the quill of a feather and 
glue it into place ; let it project towards the 
back more than the front. Through this 
quill run your string doubled so that there 
is a long loop both back and front and be 
sure that the string works easily through 
the quill. A portion of a tiny reel will do 
instead of a quill if it is glued on to the 
back. The object of the quill or reel is to 
form a tube, so that the figure will slip 



136 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

along this when the string is slackened, 
but that it will hold firm whenever the 
string is tightened. The weights must be 
heavy enough to make the figure balance 
and run downwards as the string is sloped. 
A pair of butterfly wings can be cut out of 
writing paper and painted and fastened to 
the back. A little garland of everlasting 
flowers or moss or beads can be fastened to 
the hands if you wish to do so. 

A MODEL AEROPLANE 

Materials Required : — 

Soft white wood^ laundry pins, thin cardboard, a 
tiny piece of mica, mucilage. 

This model was made by a boy of eleven 
and is most beautifully proportioned and 
put together. The body and wings and 
floats and little boats are all made of the 
white wood, well smoothed with sandpa- 
per; the stearing-gear is of cardboard. The 
propellor is made of mahogany and the 
tiny wind-screens of semicircles of mica. 
All is put together with ''laundry" pins. 
The ailerons on the upper planes are held 
by strips of narrow tape. 



A MODEL AEROPLANE 137 



^'IR^US;*^ 








eufcvAToR 



"V FLPAT^ 




T'AiL.rLSAr'S^ 
f^oRnArf Guild 



Fig. 110. 



138 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 



A FARMYARD 

Such toys as this can only be suggested 
very briefly, but children with any common 
sense and imagination can make most elab- 
orate and delightful collections. 

The box used for the byre or stable is 
only one of many more elaborate buildings 
that can be made. The dwelling house of 




•Fig. Ill, 
larger boxes, the barns, the haystacks, the 

pigsty, the chicken coop, troughs, and such 

things can all be made of larger or smaller 

boxes. Buildings can be thatched with 

straw, rushes, ha}^; or corrugated paper 

may be put on the roof. The palings here 



A FARMYARD 139 

are made of matches set into posts of 
wooden pegs, much like those used by 
gardeners to label plants. Trees and flow- 
ering plants can be made by getting small 
bushy bare twigs and wrapping their 
branches with moss, or fastening on ever- 
lasting flowers of gay dyed colors. Old 
sponges may be dyed green and cut up and 
fixed in the branches. A reel sawed in two 
makes a good plant pot for these. 

The sheep illustrated here is made of a 
cork, with legs of matches. Its head is a 
tiny bean fixed to the cork with a pin, both 
neck and body are wrapped in cotton wool, 
and it is neatly fastened on with white 
mending yarn. The lamb is made of a 
large bean and a small one, with legs of 
pins; the beans must be soaked before set- 
ting in the pins. Noah's ark animals can 
be used to increase the live stock of the 
farm. Fields can be made of green crinkled 
paper, and a piece of glass or a tiny mirror 
can be used to make a pond. Carts, bar- 
rows, and farm implements can be made of 
all sorts of things, and clever children can 
really make wonderful farms. Windmills 



140 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

and other simple machines can be intro- 
duced also. 

A DOLL'S HOUSE 

These can be made of bandboxes or 
orange-boxes and can be either very simple 
or as elaborate as you please. If cardboard 
boxes are used, Figure 113 shows how it 
can most easily be arranged to give the 
pitch of the roof. One story may be piled 
on another so that the house can be en- 
larged at will. Doors and windows are 
easily cut in the cardboard boxes. The 
windows can also be glazed if 3^ou get a 
few rolls of cinematograph film and fit and 
paste it on, but children must be warned 
that this is very inflammable and it is dan- 
gerous to bring it near the fire or gas. The 
inside of the rooms may be papered, and on 
the walls little pictures may be pasted. The 
illustrated catalogues from furniture shops 
can often be cut up, and the diagrams of 
doors, etc., cut out and pasted on the doors 
of your house. Figure 1 12 shows a sitting- 
room and a little shop or kitchen. In the 



A DOLL'S HOUSE 



141 



latter the counter and dresser are made of 
matchboxes. The shelves are of strips of 
cardboard with uprights of cane, wire, or 
knitting-needles. The fireplace in the sit- 
ting-room can be made of a lid of a card- 
board box stitched to the wall, and in it 

m 



MS 




Figs. 112 to 114. 
another box (a matchbox, for instance) 
can be set to make the grate. A good table 
can be made as in Figure 114, which is 
made by using a lid of a small box, and to 
the inside of its corners glueing the legs. 



142 THE PLAYWORK BOOK 

and then the larger top of thick cardboard 
can be fixed on with mucilage. The little 
shields for the corks of bottles, made of 
pleated lead foil, make very pretty pots 
and kitchen vessels in such little houses. 
Rugs can be woven of wool and string, and 
cushions, etc., to furnish the place. But 
there is no end to the things a child can 
make for a doll's house if imagination is en- 
couraged to work the hands. 

Other "Community Toys" can be made — 
railway stations, signals, and signal-boxes 
are very popular; a market place with its 
little tented stalls is charming. The hous- 
es we see in pictures of foreign lands give 
great interest, and many are so easy to 
make that it is quite possible to illustrate 
the history of home building by means of a 
series of toy houses. The darker side of 
life has even invaded our nurseries, and 
they too have shown the games of the 
trench and the guns : and it will be good to 
plan in our playwork now for the rebuild- 
ing of the world in the ways of peace, for it 
is these children of ours who must lead the 
world back or forward, for better or for 



A DOLL'S HOUSE 143 

worse. All the world is in their hands, 
though the hands may not yet be strong 
for more than the making of toys. We old- 
er children do but play other games with 
more serious intent, yet all the same the 
difference betwen the game and the busi- 
ness is but a difference of degree. 



THE END 



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